Inside the skull
by Flacchus
Summary: A study in Sherlock's mind. He's a sociopath, and then there's John. A study in John's heart. He's a wreck, and then there's Sherlock. They're two marvels and two monsters, and they know it.
1. A couch on the edge of an abyss

Sherlock Holmes knows he's a marvel. He's a bloody marvel and he's aware of that.  
He knows that his brain is a wonder, and why should he be modest about that?  
No one is going to give him a prize for that in any case (_no, he's only given gallows and crowns of tin and laughing faces, green with envy and red with anger_), and he's not going to hide himself.  
Because if the world is made of plastic replicas that point at him their index fingers and peer at him with judging eyes, then he's going to show them that he's made of ivory and genius and that there's a whole world inside of his skull and an abyss into his chest—but he can live with it, without falling into it. He only has to be a bit careful when he walks on the edge (_because he does, because he's curious and that dark hole looks so empty and so unfamiliar to him_), and he has a strong sense of equilibrium. He knows that he will fall someday, but there are going to be a lot of dawns and sunsets before that day, and maybe—_maybe_—he will be prepared when that happens.

He knows that his brain is a super-complicated machine whose gears cannot just stop taking the world and analyzing it—_chewing it, dismembering it_—until it's right in front of his pupils, all broken and simple and stupid (_and he pities it and envies it at the same time_).  
The world is shattered and it's crying, crying tears of shame and clinging onto his blue dressing gown, scratching his face with its sharp nails, trying to go back to how it was before he was born, before he picked up the chisel of science and the scalpel of logic, inscrutable and perfect and out of reach. But the world—this pathetic image of the world Sherlock has to see, this silly little girl in a white dress and with eyes that are red (_no, scarlet_) from crying—cannot hurt him, cannot really touch him, because if his heart is made of stone and his mind of diamond, his face is made of marble and it's not going to move (_showing emotions is for the weak_).  
It reflects everything that is inside of his skull, behind his azure eyeballs: _the gears_. Oh, the gears.  
They're cruel gears made of iron and steel and numbers and coldness and of a spasmodic desire to _know_ and take and _own_ and make things his _possessions_, all aligned like petri dishes on his desk, ready to go under the microscope's lens, ready to be observed, touched and catalogued.  
They run and run and _run_ and move and change, and eat everything that Sherlock sees, from the weapon that killed the victim to the love that brought an army doctor to his side. But they're not only a way to discern the world, no, they're a way to destroy it, and everything he loves and cherishes and cares about ends up being shattered into tiny fragments, as well as everything he hates and loathes and ignores, and he can do nothing to fix it (_because, in the end, he's human_).  
The gears treat things and people like specimens and they _feed _themselves on specimens.

He knows that people would sell their souls in order to merely grasp the basilar concepts of that machine only to create copies and copies of it and sell them in shops and use them to solve their little, meaningless, idiotic problems, trying to improve their ridiculously common lives. They only even care about rubbish, and they would turn those perfect machines into rubbish, too.  
They could be like him, if they wanted to. But their eyes are covered in lead and their eyelids sewn in red wire, their mouths speak the language of the fools and their hands clap the applause of the imbecile (_and they make so much unwanted noise, he wishes they would stop_).  
When the people are not busy ridiculing themselves and looking at him as he was some animal in a zoo, they scream like devils on fire, filled with jealousy and envy and hate (the noise, _the noise!_).  
They could be like him, if they wanted to. But their brains are not marvels and are not machines, no, they're made of mud, filled with stupid things, so barely used, so dead, _so dead_.  
Sometimes Sherlock wishes he could enter those brains and sculpt them, carve into their synapsis the sparkle of genius and engrave in their neurons the fire of doubt. He wishes he could mold those masses of meat like an artist molds their first matter, but he cannot. And it _destroys_ him.

Everything is dull and boring to Sherlock's brain: he can see the projects behind the things, the skeletons behind the ideas, the instincts behind the beasts and the sentiments behind the people. He can vivisect the world, but the world _cannot see it_ because it's too busy thinking that he's a marvel, and too jealous to see that he's a broken madman, completely and utterly crazy, a statue made of ice with a burning heart and an aching mind, a walking wreck in a prison.  
But sometimes the world doesn't think he's a marvel: it thinks he's a monster, a freak, an aberration, but he only lusts for knowledge and he will do anything to obtain it, from enduring the insults to piercing his wrists, because if there's a greater good, a good that he can die for, then that good is knowledge, knowledge that can feed his gears and make him live. He can't possibly allow the gears to eat themselves—_and he knows that will happen if he stops working, if he stops thinking.  
_He can cut the world into pieces with his piercing eyes and his long fingers and line them up in tidy rows to his pleasure only for the sake of it, just to prove that he's capable of that, just to make the Earth less chaotic and untidy and asymmetrical and wrong. But he doesn't do that for that reason, no, he does that because he _can't_ think of any other way to live, to act, to think, because he's afraid of his brain eating itself, of its mind engulfing its genius and of the blank that would come after that.  
He can almost see that blank. Almost. Because he has a canvas into his mind, a blank canvas.

All is connected by thick and thin lines, everything is a dot in a blank canvas and he can write on it, add as many dots and lines as he wants, and it would still make sense because his brain is a machine and a marvel and something he can _control_. The canvas is never empty, and how could it be? Can Sherlock imagine emptiness? Can Sherlock _really_ imagine it? _Yes_, he says, and it comes in a terrified whisper. He's shaking and he's frightened and he keeps writing desperately on the canvas, adding data and drawing thoughts, using chalk and tears and blood and paint and everything he can use, because everything—_everything_—is better than the void.  
He has experienced the void before, but he was only on the edge of it (_even if it felt like he was in its middle_), and he became addicted to the danger, to the adrenaline. But quite a lot of syringes later he had understood that there was something wrong about it, because feeling normal—_brain resting, mind keeping silence, eyes shut and heart pulsing_—wasn't normal to him. He had to work with what he had, and what he had was a mad brain and voracious gears. So he stopped.  
The small red dots on his forearms were forming a beautiful pattern and he wanted to see more of it, but he stopped, and it felt like vomiting and crying and agonizing.  
But he endured it for the sake of knowledge. He still does.

Yes, he can control his mind (_until a certain point_). But he cannot control the world and this drives him insane. He cannot stop the world from being wrong and nonsense. Even if he can see beyond everything, even if he can make the world cry, even if he can skin it and collect it, this doesn't mean it makes sense. It doesn't. It simply _doesn't _and sometimes Sherlock finds it hard to breathe, and he chokes and gasps on the air that is made of molecules that are untidy and chaotic and just plainly wrong. He can't block the visions out of his mind, he can't help but _deduce_ and find all the dots and all the lines and join them—and he wishes they would stop, just stop and be still and be quiet, and then he thinks of heroin and small red punctures and wants to see them again so desperately, but he can't, _he can't_. He cannot be normal because it would be weird.  
The world explodes behind his eyelids and language stops making sense because it will _never_ be able to express what he's feeling, the language dies and resurrects in only a few seconds, he sees the atoms and the galaxies and he can almost see the blank, the void and the gears; he looks badly for data, for something he doesn't know, and then everything can be controlled again (_for a while_).  
He might be a marvel, but he's just a man and he's just a monster, and how can a man made of clay and a creature made of sickness fight against so many dots and so many lines? They keep rising and growing and _they're not in even numbers, how can he bear it?_ He shakes and trembles under his burden, but he doesn't want the gears to squeak, so he goes on, like a beast, like a slave.

The world thinks he's a marvel, and the world is right.  
The world thinks he's a monster, and the world is right.

Sherlock's eyelids are heavy and he feels sick and has the right to feel sick, but then a voice calls him back (_calling his name, making him remember who he is_) and he does come back.  
He opens his eyes and he's sitting on his armchair and John is looking at him. _John.  
_In less than one second his mind is hungry and it's working again—_John is wearing a jumper he doesn't particularly like because Harriet bought it for him to feel less guilty about her drinking habits, and John is so full of sentiment and that's why he's wearing it, really, he's formidable, how can he even do that, having nerves of steel and a tender heart, maybe it's because he has no gears, Sherlock doesn't know but he will figure it out eventually because he cannot allow himself not to, John had a terrible day at work and he can see it in the curve of his lips and the expression of his eyes, how can people not notice this, it's elementary stuff, and yet they don't, how, how, and John doesn't either but John tries to, at least he tries, because if Sherlock has a mind of iron and a heart of marble, then John has a heart of steel and a mind of paper, because he wants to learn and he wants it so badly, and it's all moved by love, and how can he not fall into the abyss, maybe there's not an abyss in the first place, I should carve his chest to make sure, and now he looks worried and annoyed at the same time_—, and Sherlock is so grateful to John for that he could die right now.  
John's eyes are inquisitive but he says nothing, because he knows that Sherlock's mind races sometimes and he know precisely and exactly when it needs to be stopped before Sherlock does something incredibly stupid just for the sake of it, for the sake of using his brain.  
_John knows how to stop the void._

Sherlock Holmes knows John is a marvel. He's a bloody marvel and he's aware of that.  
John Watson is a marvel in a complete different way, though. His mind is not made of gears and it's not a machine, but _still_—they kind of belong to each other and it's wonderful, it's wonderful that Sherlock is owning him because he's a possession he's quite proud of.  
And if John's his possession, then Sherlock wants to _study _him like he has never studied anything before. But he knows that what he wants is wrong and he knows that it would ruin John.  
_He wants to peel the skin off John's skull and place it on a canvas and admire it, he wants to saw John's skull and place the fragments in a bowl and play with them sometimes, he wants to take John's brain and cut it into pieces just to see why John can't see what he sees, he wants to take John's heart and watch it while it pulses, he wants to fill bottles with John's blood and assimilate it just because it's his, he wants to cut away his limbs, he wants to do so many things and none of them is even remotely right or legal. He wants to give John an autopsy while he's still alive, and he wants John to do the same thing to him. It would be marvelous, wouldn't it?_

He wants to disassemble John and then fix him.  
He wants _John_ to disassemble him and then fix him.

He wonders what John wants to do. He's pretty sure John doesn't want all those things because John is _normal_ and that is both a curse and a blessing; Sherlock _needs_ John to be normal because he needs John to stop the void and he needs John to make him know what is wrong and what is right, because he knows everything but nothing makes sense. John can't understand him but that doesn't mean he cannot complete him (_they fit so well, don't they_).  
Sherlock cannot love him in any other way. Because he does; he likes walking on the edge of the abyss too much not to know that. It's not romantic, it's not sexual, but it's _love_. Not the right kind of love, not the normal kind of love, but there are so many types of love and so many types of everything that it doesn't matter, it just doesn't. How could it possibly be important?  
It's two soul mates saving each other. It's two lives tangled up and mixed, it's two marvels killing and resurrecting each other over and over. It's something unique and terrible and wonderful at the same time, and Sherlock loves it and he knows that John loves it too, because he knows everything without understanding it and he needs John to translate everything for him.  
Sherlock cannot love him in any other way and John cannot either.

They can try to be happy while hurting each other—_John being a compass and giving the world sense and being a heart, and Sherlock giving him crime scenes and battlefields and being a mind_—, they can try and fail and try again because they're bound to linger on and bleed.  
And, oh, they love it more than the air that they breathe, more than everything else in the world, because they are one and they're made for each other, and that's an abused idiom but Sherlock (Sherlock that hates language because it can't express anything, Sherlock that cannot speak of the dots and the lines) can't think of anything else. And John cannot, either.

Sherlock notices John is still looking at him with the same expression. _He knows.  
_They both smirk at their soul mates, soul mates that are hurting and healing each other.

Sherlock Holmes and John Watson are two marvels, and they know it.  
Sherlock Holmes and John Watson are two monsters, and they know it.  
What the world thinks doesn't really matter.

Sherlock picks up his violin and starts playing. John closes his eyes, and listens.  
_  
_


	2. A mine in the depths of a ventricle

There is a gun into John's drawer. It's placed over a pile of sheets of paper and a journal on which he hasn't written a single line yet (_he doesn't intend to_). It's not dusty because sometimes the doctor likes turning it over in his hands just to sense its weight—it's a really pleasant feeling and he adores it—before putting it back where it actually belongs, the narrow space of a drawer in a house that doesn't feel like a home, a house where he still makes his bed in the way soldiers use to, even if he's not a soldier and he's not in the desert anymore (_sometimes he wishes he was and thinks of the sand and the sun_).  
It's the gun he was given when he joined the army. It's a very standard gun and it shouldn't normally be worth mentioning. But in this case—in this peculiar case that features a high-functioning sociopath and an army doctor that are both marvels and monsters (_and they know it_)—it is. This particular gun in this particular scenario deserves a lot of attention. It's a gun that should be breaking a man's skull but is now piercing the bones of criminals. It's a gun whose burning bullets should be destroying a heart but are following the trail of adrenaline. This gun shines like the stars of the desert and weighs like an infected organ. It feels like a bottle of poison and a drop of antidote. This gun is like every other gun in the world but was meant to be found in a crime scene. It's the weapon of death and the chorus of salvation. This gun is _the_ gun.

John Watson is a doctor. In fact, he's an army doctor and a quite experienced one. He's a really damn good doctor and when he goes to Afghanistan he's as pure as a lamb, but when he comes back he feels like a new Prometheus with bloodied fingers.  
Doctors are supposed to fix people. Since people are like super-complicated machines, doctors are supposed to know every single circuit inside their bodies, every drop of blood and every fragment of bone and every shred of muscle. Their illnesses should be learnt by heart and their repairs carved into the doctors' wrists like lines of a gospel. Doctors are supposed to act like gods and burst out laughing when Death is approaching their patients because with a touch of their fingers they can kill the Grim Reaper himself and resurrect the rotting corpses.  
With a look or a caress doctors can make a human cry or smile. With a look or a caress doctors can decipher the intricate codes of a radiography or suture the delicate flesh of an unbearable wound. They can decode the language of the body and try to translate it into the language of the soul. They can make human beings function or turn them into wrecks. It's a misunderstood power but no one questions it.  
It's with the best intentions and the purest hopes—like everyone else—that John studies medicine and learns how to save the organism to allow the spirit to go on.  
It's with the best intentions and the purest hopes that he joins the army.  
John fundamentally thinks he's a good man. He leads a good life and tries to have good thoughts. He acts like a good man and he believes it's enough.

It takes him a war to understand he's a good man.  
It takes him a war to understand that good men can be bad, too.

At first he thinks it's the desert.  
All that sand is driving him completely insane; he can feel it on his skin, into his bones, behind his eyelids. It's scratching his lungs and corroding his brain. It's in the food he eats and in the water he drinks, in the dreams he has and in the visions he sees. It's in the landscape and sometimes it makes John feel so sick that he's tempted to take his gun and shoot a final bullet right into his head. Sometimes he cannot breathe because he fears that even the air might turn into sand and that thought kills him.  
No one can survive for long if engulfed by so much sand. There's sand in the guns and in the bullets and in the soldiers.  
When he starts looking at the sky and seeing grains of sand instead of stars, he decides he's reached the point of no return.  
Then, when he gets used to the brown crystals, he thinks it's the sun.  
Afghanistan is a land of sun: it shines with obstinate haughtiness on the helmets of the soldiers and the dying men, on the tents that should be habitations but are merely shelters, on the Havana sea that seems to have no end. Sunlight is like a torture and it can be seen even at night, when John should sleep but can't; it's reflected in the moon and in the pupils of his comrades. It makes the earth boil and the noses bleed. It's in the gunshots and in the coffee they drink in the morning.  
No one can survive for long if engulfed by so much sunlight. There's sunlight in the guns and in the bullets and in the soldiers.  
When he starts looking at the sky and loathing that giant star like it was the face of the devil, he decides he's reached the point of no return.  
For a while, these justifications seem plausible. Then, when he gets used to both the desert and the light, he thinks it is _that_ patient.

His first patient is only slightly injured. He's been shot in his left leg. The wound isn't too deep and John fixes him with only a few stitches, thinking of his textbooks that are now lying on his desk at his parents' house and of the alcohol Harry must be drinking in this precise moment. John feels like a good man and like a god, and when the soldier thanks him for having done his job, John sees gratitude shining into his eyes and feels proud of himself. He wants to show the accurate suture he has made to the whole world and walk on a carpet of purple through the desert screaming "_this is what I've done, look at it, isn't it a marvel? I could have waited and let the wound infect and then cut his leg away only to make it look clean and perfect again. But I didn't. I disinfected it and stroked it with my fingers, I observed the blood and then I washed it away, I didn't pick up my scalpel but I took some catgut from my bag and I sewed the wound like a tailor would have done. I could have cherished the bullet that hit him and I could have treated it like a jewel and I could have kept it into a box, only to open that box once every few weeks and look at it. It would have been the proof of my ability and of my genius. But look at his leg. It's wonderful now. I made it wonderful. And I did all this because I am a marvel myself_".  
Yes, John Watson is a marvel. He's a marvel and he's a good man, and he can endure the desert for a little bit longer.

But his first patient is not _that_ patient. His sixth patient is _that_ patient.  
He's a soldier that has been shot in the stomach. There is really nothing John can do about that: normally, if you're shot in the stomach, you die in about 20 minutes. Your gastric juices simply corrode your flesh and that's it. It's a painful death.  
John only has the time to look at the wound before the soldier passes away. For a minute or two he refuses what has happened but then reality hits him in a single, hurtful blow and the doctor suddenly feels a terrible rage growing inside of him (_it's illogical and he knows it but he doesn't really care_). He wants to shake the dead man's body and scream right into his face "_I could have fixed you! I could have fixed you if you only had the strength to endure it for a little while longer. You could be alive right now, but you've been weak and now you're dead, and you ruined my work because I was perfect, I was perfect. I was the best and you ruined it all, and I hope that you're rotting in hell right now, and I don't even know if hell exists but I want it to because you deserve it. Can't you see? I was a marvel and you ruined it all."  
_John knows that what he's thinking is completely and utterly wrong. He knows he's a monster for thinking that.  
Yes, John Watson is a monster. He's a monster and he's a bad man, and maybe he really needs that bullet in his head.  
It's not the sand, it's not the sun, it's not that patient. It's just him.

It takes him a war to understand that he's a marvel.  
It takes him a war to understand that he's a monster.

Then, the world stops having a meaning.  
The desert grows dark and the sun becomes black. John can't feel his heart beating anymore and he thinks too often of _that_ bullet. But he has to go on, somehow.  
_His heart starts beating to the rhythm of gunshots.  
_It's like he has stepped on a mine and he can't just walk away like nothing happened. If he's a marvel and he's a monster, then he has to face it. And he does face it. He looks for terrible wounds and fixes them because he's a doctor. When they're too deep or when it's too late, he simply closes his patients' eyes and tries to forget.  
_Then he gets shot._

He gets shot in the shoulder and for a second he's certain he's going to die and that angers him. Why can't he just operate himself? They should let him do that. He'd make a perfect job, he's amazing. But they don't. How cruel.  
He gets shot in the shoulder and he survives. Then they send him back to London.  
There are no gunshots in London and nothing has a meaning anymore.  
There are no gunshots in London and he just wants to end it.  
There's a cane next to his bed and a therapist that cannot help him in her study.  
There's a bed that feels like a coffin and a house that smells like a crypt.  
There's _the_ gun into his drawer and he's about to make his choice.  
_Then Sherlock Holmes happens._

Sherlock Holmes happens and John can feel his heart beating again with unknown ferocity. That man is completely mad (_and he's a marvel and a monster and John knows it and he feels great_), but in a day he makes John abandon his cane and run in a city that doesn't look grey anymore and suddenly smells like sand and sun and the doctor—that has learnt to hate the desert and the sunbeams—suddenly loves it like he has never loved anything before. Sherlock is made of gunshots and bullets and crime scenes and John adores him. He worships him because they're two sides of the same coin and he makes everything fall right into its place.  
His brain is the size of a planet and he lusts after knowledge in the same way John lusts after action (_they need it, it's like they're drugged, isn't it_).  
Sherlock is made of neurons and grey matter and John is made of ventricles and arteries. Sherlock is moved by his head and John is moved by his heart.  
It's fascinating, really, how Sherlock can understand and deduce everything but cannot realize if something is right or wrong; it's fascinating, really, how John can _lead_ him even if he's completely, utterly and totally normal. They follow and lead each other at the same time. It's like playing with fire: dangerous and strangely addictive.  
John cannot understand Sherlock and Sherlock cannot understand John: but it doesn't matter, as long as they can complete each other.  
After their meeting, everything is made of blood and death and right and wrong and John simply _loves_ it. It's a good thing that Sherlock loves it, too.

Sometimes John (John that knows they're both marvels and monsters) wants to be the one to fix Sherlock Holmes. He'd like Sherlock to come home someday with a terrible wound. He'd like to help him and suture his wound and make the world right again. Sherlock would look at him with his blue eyes, he would be grateful and John would just think "_look, I've fixed you and you're perfect again. All thanks to me._"  
Sometimes John wants that day to come really soon. Sometimes he wishes to be the one to hurt Sherlock, too; because nothing would be as marvelous as breaking him and then repairing him again. Because if John is a madman then Sherlock is, too, and he would understand this. John will never tell him, of course.  
It would be really amazing if Sherlock asked him "_someday, when I die, when I'm so wounded that not even you can help me, I want you to end me and then cut me into pieces. I know that you want to understand me, and you're made of capillaries and blood pressure and valves and live on anatomy; and if you need to disassemble me to see how I'm made, you can do it. And I want you to keep my brain in a jar on your nightstand. I really want you to_". It would be completely wrong, but fantastic.

There is a gun into John's drawer at 221B, Baker Street. It's placed over a pile of sheets of paper and a journal on which he hasn't written a single line yet (_he has a blog now_). It's not dusty because really often the doctor likes to bring it with him when he's chasing some criminal with the world's only consulting detective—it's a really pleasant feeling and he adores it—before putting it back where it actually belongs, the narrow space of a drawer in a house that feels like a home and like a laboratory, a house that he shares with his soul mate and that is as thrilling as a battlefield and as wonderful as a crime scene, even if he's not a soldier and he's not in the desert anymore (_sometimes he believes he is and thinks of the sand and the sun_).  
It's the gun he was given when he joined the army. It's a very standard gun and it shouldn't normally be worth mentioning. But in this case—in this peculiar case that features a high-functioning sociopath and an army doctor that are both marvels and monsters (_and they know it_)—it is. This particular gun in this particular scenario deserves a lot of attention. It's the gun that was meant to break John Watson's skull but is now making him a deathly man with a heart. It's the gun whose icy bullets should be ending a misery but are following the trail of a murderer. It shines like a brain made of gears and weighs like a heart made of fire. It feels like a lethal injury and miraculous bandage. This gun is like every other gun in the world but was meant—since the start—to be found in a flat in London. It's the weapon of life and the scream of danger. This gun is _the_ gun.

This gun has been _the_ gun since the beginning, but it took John Watson a war and a Holmes to realize that.


	3. A skyscraper in the middle of a syringe

When Sherlock is younger and lives in a dull flat in the middle of London, he lives on syringes to make the world look quieter (_he lives on synesthesiae, too_).  
He's lying on his bed. He's dreaming.

There's a huge palace. The floor is made of tiles of chiseled gold; the walls are white with exquisite decorations made in plaster and they're high, high, _high_. They're covered in bookshelves: the books are new, ancient, big, small, interesting, boring. There is no ceiling, only a black sky filled with dots and lines that look like galaxies and constellations. But even if the sky is so dark there's a lot of light.  
Everything is a mess. There are tables covered in broken violins and sheets of paper. There are chairs with random clothes on them. There are bowls full of human eyes, trays filled with orange peeps, a duck made of gems, severed limbs with labels on them, bottles of blood, some weapons, a couple of really suspiciously looking plants, one or two corpses and tons of numbers stacked up in a corner. A bust of Napoleon is looking at a giant globe covered in nicotine patches. The English language is lying next to a group of dead bees. A dog is barking somewhere. There are a thousand filing cabinets filled with data.  
Noise is filling the air. It's a noise that reminds of iron and steel and shattered glass.  
Everything smells like honey.

Sherlock is sitting on the floor. His dark curls are too long and his face is too childish; his cheekbones are as sharp as a sword and he's far too skinny.  
This is Sherlock when he was a kid and, at the same time, this is Sherlock _now_.  
He's playing with some pills. He's lining them up in a precise scheme (_he doesn't know which scheme yet_). He seems quite absorbed in this activity.  
All of a sudden he frowns and turns his face towards the figure that is approaching him. "Why are you here?", he asks with hatred.  
"Oh, you know that I care about you," replies Mycroft.  
This is Mycroft when he was in high school. He hasn't started his diet yet and looks as bothering as ever. He's wearing a terrible outfit that features a bowtie and has a red umbrella.  
The older brother removes a skull from one of the stools that are near his little brother and gingerly sits on it. He crosses his legs.  
"What are you up to?" he inquires with the most nonchalant tone, raising an eyebrow.  
Sherlock doesn't really want to answer, but he does it anyway. "I'm ordering those pills, can't you see?"  
Mycroft nods. "Yes, I do. I wanted you to tell me."  
"Why?" Sherlock picks up one pill and is tempted to throw it at his brother's nose.  
Mycroft ignores the question. "Why are you doing this?"  
Sherlock opens his eyes wide. "_Why?_" He looks confused. He thinks about it for a few seconds and then scowls. "They looked wrong and I wanted to fix them. Isn't it the right thing to do? Fix things?"  
"In most cases, yes," agrees Mycroft. "How long have you been… _fixing them?_"  
"Oh, for a long time," comments Sherlock. "Do you think that adding chemicals to them would work? It usually does. I don't know why, but when I do that I solve things. I like it. It makes me feel like I have a meaning."  
"I think you should stop playing with those pills and come home," says Mycroft.  
"You're as annoying as ever," Sherlock bursts out. "Can't you see I'm making this place a better place?"  
"I reckon it looks quite chaotic," his brother murmurs.  
"Well, it's chaotic to you, not to me. And it's _my_ place, why do you even care?" Sherlock is getting angry now. "And I wouldn't come home in any case."  
"Any particular reason?"  
"Well, there's _you_ at home," Sherlock begins. "And you always leave me alone, so you're there without really being there and it feels wrong. And then there's Mummy and Daddy and they make so much noise. Especially Daddy. And I can see the letters when they scream, it's like someone typing on a keyboard in capslock and I hate it. They are never quiet."  
"It's because they care about you," explains Mycroft. "And this place is pretty noisy, too."  
"It's quieter than our home. And don't lie to me, I know that Daddy only cares about _you_. He always says I'm special but he doesn't really mean it, no. He adores you, though. Because you're making all the right choices but I don't know what's wrong and what's right so I can't be like you." Sherlock is now adding some letters from the Arabic alphabet to the pills. They still look _wrong_. He doesn't know what to do with them.

Some moments pass. There are equations crying in a corner. Sherlock will have to feed them later. He wonders if they would like the pills.  
An animal is eating a book about serial killers.  
"What's that?" asks Mycroft.  
"It's an otter."  
"Why is there an otter in a place like this?"  
"Why shouldn't it be here? It's a nice place. I know a lot of things about otters. I like the fact that it stays here. Even if it's a bit unhygienic."  
"I think that staying in place full of limbs is quite unhygienic, too, brother dear."  
"Oh, but they never rot. I tried to make them do that, but they don't. I wonder why. I've seen a lot of rotten corpses, I know how they look like."  
Mycroft sighs. He's now looking at his younger brother's forearms. "There is a mosaic on your skin".  
Sherlock caresses the skin of his left forearm. There are some plugs of red marble set on it. "Yes, isn't it beautiful? I did it."  
"Did you do it with the syringes?" Mycroft's voice sounds worried.  
"Yes. They cost me a lot, but look at it. It's so pretty and perfect and it made my flat quieter. It makes sense now. I just don't want to see it really soon."  
"You shouldn't have a mosaic on your body, you know," Mycroft insists. "No one should."  
"Oh, well, that's true for normal people. But I'm not normal. Look at me, I'm fantastic." Sherlock sounds happy. He's immensely proud of his arms.  
"No, brother. You're not fantastic. You're really, really, really _wrong_."  
"I'm not _wrong_!" Sherlock is screaming all of a sudden. "Can't you see how clever I am? Look at this place, it's all inside my head! It's beautiful! Why do you have to say I am wrong?"  
"Broth—", Mycroft begins, but Sherlock is now throwing musical notes and letters at him.  
"You never understand anything!" Sherlock cries. "You think that I'm abnormal because you see but you don't observe. You're like everyone else! _And stop doing that!"_  
"Doing what?" Mycroft is scared, now. He doesn't know what to do to calm his little brother that is now crying helplessly.  
"Moving. You're moving the molecules. You can't see them, but I can, and you're making them all messy and wrong and it _hurts_."  
"People have to move sometimes, Sherlock," Mycroft murmurs.  
"They don't," replies the dark-haired boy pointing his index finger to the corpses. "They never do. I like them. They only want me solve things."  
"You can't really stop doing that, can you? _Solving things_."  
"It's not my choice, Mycroft," Sherlock says, sounding as hurt as ever. "Can't you see it?"

He's now looking sadly at a tall building in the exact middle of the palace. It's a skyscraper. It's grey and dull and on its roof there are _the gears_.  
The noise comes from them. They're giant and indeed look blood-thirsty. They're absolutely terrifying and Mycroft can see his own fear reflected into his younger brother's eyes.  
"I _need_ to think," Sherlock moans. "Just look at them. If I don't paint the ceiling, my brain will rot. It's all there, you know. On the ceiling."  
Mycroft doesn't understand, and Sherlock knows it.  
"Maybe I _am_ wrong," Sherlock continues. "But I know everyone wants to be like me, so I must be wonderful, too."  
"Your brain is a marvel," says Mycroft. "It's an utter marvel, but it's also a monster. It's horrifying. How do you even manage to stay here?"  
"This is what I have. Sometimes I have syringes, too. They help me."  
There are some minutes of silence.  
"I wonder if there's someone like me." Sherlock whispers. "Someone that understands. Because you're really clever too, but you don't have gears. I don't think anyone else has them. But I believe that someone who's fantastic, _really_ fantastic, can understand this. So I want to leave my flat because it's grey and nonsense and noisy and meet someone fantastic. Do you think I will, someday?"  
"I don't know."  
"I know you don't. I never expect you to."  
Mycroft stands up. "I have to go, now. When are you going to come back?"  
"When I finish making the pills look right," Sherlock replies. "I cannot just leave them like this. I will go back to my flat even if I hate it and I will wake up again and when I'll feel better I'll try to throw the other syringes away, even if I'd really like to keep being a mosaic. But I know I can't because I am human and humans are not made of marble, so I'll try to get rid of them, _I promise_. Now go away, I'm seeing your thoughts and every single thing you've done today and I have to see so many things already, and you're making so much _confusion_ and you cannot realize how much I want it to stop."  
Mycroft gives him a pitying look and ruffles his dark curls. Then he walks away.

Sherlock remains alone in the smell of honey and the noise of the gears, the sky which is a canvas which is a brain silently guarding him from above.

When Sherlock wakes up, he has to face Lestrade.  
He's been helping the police for quite some time now, but the signs of his addiction are really evident and everybody _knows_.  
Lestrade is a good man. He pretends not to and it makes Sherlock feel guilty for some reason.  
Today he has found him red-handed. They're sitting in Sherlock's living room. Sherlock is feeling quite dizzy and when he looks at his forearms and he cannot see the marble he wants to cry (_the pattern was so beautiful and he loved it and it made sense_). The flat is made of noise again and everything is full of capital letters.  
"You need to stop, Sherlock," the DI is saying right now. "You're a genius and I don't know what the hell is going on in your head, but you're killing yourself."  
"There's no point in denying that," Sherlock comments in a husky voice.  
"I'm going to call your brother. _Again_. He has to be informed. He's worried sick about you, you know, and I'm getting tired of this, Sherlock."  
"Understandable."  
"Do you realize that my not reporting you might cost me my career?" Lestrade sounds like an angered father and Sherlock is utterly grateful to him for that. He doesn't know why, but this time he's not going to worry about it (_even if it will hurt later_).  
"Yes. Obviously." He pauses. "But you need me."  
"I do," Lestrade confirms. "And you need someone to stop you, too. And that's precisely what I'm going to do."  
"How?"  
"Give me the rest of the syringes. _Now_."  
Sherlock stares at him (_and he hates him and worships him at the same time_), then stands up and reaches the drawer of his nightstand. He opens it, takes all the syringes and brings them to Lestrade like an obedient child.  
"You're going to stop being a junkie," Lestrade adds. "But you'll still help me with my cases. Because seriously, your brain is like a machine, and we need it. But that's not really the point, you know. You _could_ stop helping us, if you wanted to. But you don't, and I'm more than okay with that. But look at you, for God's sake. You're a great man with a great brain and I won't allow you to waste your life like this." He stands up and walks towards the front door.  
When his hand is on the door handle, Sherlock speaks again. "You don't understand."  
He wants to add "_No one does, Lestrade, and it's really not your fault, I know it, because I am like this and no one else is and sometimes I feel so alone that I just want to inject myself a lethal dose of whatever can kill me, but then I am so afraid of the void and I don't and I just want data and data and data until the gears decide that they've had enough and it never happens. It would be nice if all of this stopped, so why won't you just let me die like this? It feels so good and it doesn't hurt anyone else". _But he doesn't.  
"Hell, no, I don't," Lestrade exclaims. "I doubt that someone really does. Maybe someday I'll meet a man that will actually understand you, and believe me, I'll throw a party when that happens. For now, however, I can only try to make you survive."

Sherlock is left alone in his dull flat that smells of wasted moments and stagnant thoughts and looks like an elegy to a real habitation.  
There is something he hasn't said because he's never faced a situation in which it needed to be said. _Thank you._

After a while, he receives a text from Mycroft. It's the classical "_you need to stop/we are worried_" message; Sherlock ignores it. After all, Mycroft is getting tired of the whole situation, too: he's texting him. No more phone calls, only texts lately.  
Sherlock knows that Mycroft hasn't really visited the palace which is his mind, but this time he wishes he did. Because in his dream Mycroft has seen the gears, and they scared him.

Quite some time later, he dreams again and it's a happy dream.


	4. An alcoholic under the dunes

When John is a soldier and lives in a dull tent in the middle of a desert, he lives on gunshots to make his heart beat normally (_he lives on wounds, too_).  
He's lying on his camp bed. He's dreaming.

There's a huge desert. The sand is red, made of dried red blood cells; the sky is as dark as ever and the moon is nowhere to be seen. There's no sun, either (_finally_). It's a pleasant sight—the sand smells like injuries and catgut. It looks rusty. On John's left there's his parents' house, on his right there's London. They both look really small like doll houses. They're both grey. He feels like stepping on them, even if it feels really wrong. He wonders how his parents are. He's pretty sure they're fine but he's too lazy to visit them (_oh, the guilt_).  
There is a war somewhere; John can hear men screaming, bombs exploding, the sound of machineguns and what indeed is an activated minefield. He doesn't really care, now. He doesn't know why. It must be because the war is really, really distant, or because it's not _his_ war. Maybe he'll help the soldiers, later. He's a doctor, after all.  
He's wearing his helmet. He tries to take it off but it's like it's glued to his scalp. How odd.  
John doesn't know what to do. If there's a thing that never changed about deserts, it's the fact that they're completely boring. Why should he be dreaming about deserts if he's already in one? It's not like he would have disliked another place with some plants. Or some buildings. Or, at least, less sand. His stomach's suddenly aching.  
There's a rock in front of him; it's a really huge rock and it looks like it's made of bone.  
Something's shining on the ground. John walks towards it and he picks it up. It's a scalpel. A further look makes him realize that there are lots of them buried in the sand; he also finds scissors, catgut, objects that look like voodoo dolls made of bandages and hedgehog spines. He's really perplexed. Still, he has nothing to do, so he decides to sit on the rock.

After a while he hears someone approaching. Their footsteps are light and fast.  
"You shouldn't stay here, it's dangerous," says John, only a tiny bit surprised.  
"It's not. The war is far away," Harry replies.  
This is Harriet when she was a child. She's not really tall and a bit chubby; her hair is brown and cut short. She's wearing dungarees. Her eyes are huge, watery and red. She has purple shadows under her eyes. This Harriet is a kid but, at the same time, this Harriet is Harriet _now_.  
She looks bored and his brother cannot really blame her. "Is it my war?" he asks.  
"Does this look like your desert?" his sister asks pointing at the red dunes.  
"Well, no, not really. Mine's more brown and more sunny," John answers.  
"So why should that be your war?" comes the witty reply. John sighs.  
Harriet is walking slowly in circles. She doesn't seem pleased to see him at all.  
"Why are you here, anyway?" the doctor asks.  
"Oh, I grew tired of the bottles." She decides to sit on the rock with him. "Why are _you_ here?"  
"I have nowhere else to go," John murmurs.  
"Liar!" Harry exclaims, and she suddenly looks a lot paler and a lot more adult than usual. "There's our home. Look, it's right next to London." She's indicating the doll houses.  
"I can't live with you and our parents forever," complains John. He's pretty sure Harry doesn't even live there anymore, but he doesn't say it.  
"Why?"  
John sighs. "Because it's not my place."  
"This isn't your place either, but you're here. Your desert isn't your place either, but you stay there. You're making us worry. You shouldn't." Harry's eyes are as severe as ever.  
"Well, _you_ shouldn't be an alcoholic but you are, so I'm not the only one who's making people worry," John snaps scathingly. He doesn't add "_we'll have to bury you really soon if you keep doing this, you know, and no one wants to_".  
"But you were supposed to be the special one," his sister whines. "You were the good one between the two of us."  
"What do you mean?" John frowns. He's not liking this conversation. He's not liking it _at all_.  
"I was the bad one, the defective one. I was the one you had to protect. You were our parents' _favourite._" Harry's eyes look so big and so sad. John cringes.  
"Well, I couldn't protect you from the bottles, could I," he whispers.  
"No one did. Not even Clara," she says simply. "You were _supposed_ to do better than this, though. Look at you. Addicted to being in the army."  
"It's not like I'm addicted to it," John explains. "It's just—" He doesn't finish the sentence. He doesn't know how to put it in a way Harry would understand. He takes a deep breath and tries again. "Do you see this sand? It's beautiful, isn't it? Because it's red. And the sky's beautiful too, while my sky is much different. It's the sky you can see in London, it's always the same. Only sunnier here, there's sun everywhere. Sun and sand everywhere, can you imagine? And then there's the army. There's the army with the soldiers and the doctors and well, then there's _me_."  
"You're a good doctor," Harry says interrupting him.  
"Hell, yes, I am, but that's not the point," continues her brother. "The point is, I am supposed to fix people, right? Because that's what doctors do."  
"Of course," agrees his sister. "Doctors always fix them."  
"Want to hear a thing? It's a lie. It's an utter lie. We cannot always do that. Seems like everyone's pretty sure that we can, but when we actually can't things just—I don't even know anymore, they just look _wrong_."

There are some minutes of silence. The war is still raging and echoing in the distance.  
Harry starts playing with one of the bandage voodoo dolls. Did she make them? They indeed look odd. He should ask her, but he won't.  
"I hate the desert," John says all of a sudden. "I hate the desert and I hate the sand and I hate the army. I liked being a doctor, you know. I was damn good at it, I was sure I could repair anyone. Then I couldn't! This doesn't even make sense, but I got so angry with him and I felt so bad for that, seriously, I wish I had killed myself that day. I was awful. And I know I was, but I still loathe him, dammit."  
"Who?" Harry asks. She's murmuring and looking at him with sad but gentle eyes.  
"That soldier! That stupid soldier who decided to get shot in the stomach and die in my arms."  
Harry stands up. "He's here, you know. Under that dune."  
"We didn't bury him here. We sent him back to England," John frowns.  
His sister's ignoring him now. She's walking fast towards said dune. "Come on, John!"  
He reluctantly stands up too. "What the hell, Harriet." She's not going to… exhume him, right?  
"I'll need your help, though," she says as she reaches the red hill.  
"For what?"  
"Don't you want to see him?"  
"I'm not going to dig up a corpse, Harry," John protests.  
But Harriet's already digging a hole in the ground with her bare hands. What can he do? He joins her. He tries to take off his helmet and this time it works; he tries to use it as a shovel, but it doesn't really work. He then starts using his hands, too. They don't speak.

After a while the hole is really deep. Really, really deep, like a rift.  
John and Harry are both covered in red sand (_no, blood_). John wonders when they'll have to stop digging. He wonders what they'll actually find.  
"I think we're almost there," says Harriet cheerily.  
"Are we?" John's voice's skeptical. "We're in a _canyon_, Harry."  
"Of course we are. You didn't want to see him, so you buried him really deep in the sand."  
"I didn't."  
"You did."  
His hands are touching something now. He removes a bit more sand and is finally able to wipe away the last layer of red powder from the object. It's the soldier, of course. But he doesn't look like a corpse. He's far more beautiful, like a piece of Art.  
The soldier is made of silver. There's lead where the bullet hit him. He's a wonder. He's kind of grotesque, too; his face is contorted in an expression of pain, his hair stuck to his forehead because of the sweat, his body scarred and scratched. And then there's that hole filled with lead. John's feeling sick now. He wants to run away.  
"Isn't he pretty?" Harry's happy. She' caressing the dead soldier's face.  
"Why is he like this?" he asks. His mouth's dry and he finds it difficult to talk.  
"Because this way he'll never go away," Harry replies.  
"I didn't make _this,"_ John says. "I wanted to save him, but I couldn't."  
"Yes. And you wanted him to suffer for that, right? Because he ruined you." His sister's smiling, but her eyes are as cold as ever.  
"_Yes_," John finally admits. "Yes, I did. I did it because he made me understand that I was awful and the world went black and I didn't make sense anymore. It was all quiet, so quiet that I wanted to die. Can you imagine it? A world where everything's quiet? My heart wasn't even beating anymore, I was terrified."  
"You were terrified of yourself."  
"Well, yes, I was. What the hell was I supposed to do? I was dead, I was a wreck. I am a doctor, Harry, but I wasn't able to save myself. Can you imagine how that feels? When you know that you're really fantastic but really terrible? When you're a marvel but you're a monster? Nothing made sense. _Nothing_. I wanted to end it, Harry."  
"But you didn't."  
"No, no, I didn't. Then you know what happened?"  
"What?"  
"_Gunshots_, Harry!" John's voice is pure delight know, in spite of the whole situation. "Gunshots. Myriads of them. I had always heard them but they didn't mean anything to me. But suddenly they made the world right again. They made my heart beat again. Oh, how I hate them and how I _love_ them."  
"That's why you won't come back home? Because of the gunshots?"  
"Mostly," agrees John. "Mostly because of the gunshots, yes."  
Harry looks as confused as ever.  
"You don't understand this, do you?" John asks in a resigned voce.  
"Not a bit," confirms Harry.  
The scenery changes and they are sitting on the rock made of bone again.

There is a sudden explosion in the distance and an improvise lightning. Whoever is fighting is not going to stop soon. Harry's picked up a fragment of glass from the sand.  
"How long are you going to stay here?" she asks.  
"I don't know," John answers. "I honestly don't know. But as long as I'm like this, I can't come back home."  
"You've always been like this."  
"Well, maybe. But now I _know_ it, so things are going to be a bit different, aren't they." He stands up. "Maybe I'm just wired wrong. I have no clue. I can't just ignore that. I can't ignore the fact that I'm completely mad, can I? I can't go back to London. God only knows what I could do if I went back to London—"  
"_How long are you going to stay here?_" Harry asks again, in a whisper.  
John opens his mouth, about to say something, and then closes it again. He licks his lips.  
This is going to be difficult, isn't it? Harry is just a child—well, at least she _looks_ like a child—and she loves him. How can he tell her the truth? "_She showed me that corpse even if I didn't want to see it", _he thinks. "_I guess we're both pretty cruel, then_."

"If I don't shoot myself in the head in the next days," John starts. "I'm going to stay here until I die. I'll probably _get_ shot, you know. That's a thing that happens during the war. I don't see why it shouldn't happen to me. Maybe I'll get shot in the stomach like that guy I couldn't save, maybe I'll get shot in the head. Maybe I'll get shot in the leg and the wound will get infected and they'll have to amputate it. Then they'll send me back home and I'll hate it. I _will_ hate it, Harry, because everything will be quiet and grey. Then I'll think about killing myself again. Maybe I will. I don't know. All I know is that I have to keep staying in Afghanistan. And don't look at me with those eyes, you know I'm right."  
There is an awful lot of things he doesn't add: "_I don't really want to keep staying here, you know, but there's no other place that has gunshots and I really depend on them now. It's stupid, it's really stupid, but I don't want to die, Harry, I really don't. You don't understand. Of course you don't. We're both really messed up, but I'm not only messed up, I'm completely insane. Not in an evident way. It's not like you can look at me and tell that. But I am. No one is ever going to understand that. I know you have a lot of problems, too. The drinking. And Clara. You two will get along really well for a while and I'll be happy to come to your wedding, but then things will fall apart and—oh, God, Harriet—I'm so sorry for you. I'll try to help you but you'll refuse my help. We don't understand each other, do we. I don't think I can be understood. Look at me. I'm going to bring a lot of girlfriends home but none of them will be the right one, and you know why? Because none of them will understand. Christ, Harry, can't you see how terrible this is? How terrible I am? Why do you want me to come home?_"  
Harry says nothing. There's nothing to be said, after all.

The war is still on. John is getting tired of hearing the noises, somehow.  
He can feel the sunlight on his face, even if there's no sun in the sky.  
"Who do you think is fighting?" he asks his sister.  
Everything he gets is a look of disapproval. "Why don't you just go and see?"  
She slowly walks away towards their parents' house.  
John is left alone in the smell of catgut and the voodoo dolls.

When he wakes up, he has to face another of his patients. He's not able to save him.

Quite some time later, he dreams again and it's a happy dream.


	5. A tao over a pool

Their meeting is indeed a fateful meeting.

Sherlock Holmes doesn't expect it to happen. He's stopped using drugs, that's true, and his brain is as hungry as ever, but of course he cannot foresee what's going to happen. No one actually can, not even him that is a proper genius (_what a tiresome thought_).  
John Watson is quite easy to deduce—well, like everyone else. At the same time, John represents a challenge and, for a change, not a boring one. Sherlock knows he can solve him: he cannot wait to do so. Because John might be as clear as the sun and normal, but the genius doesn't think he's _average_, and he wants to prove himself that he's right.  
The consulting detective asks the army doctor to share a flat with a nonchalance that would make Mycroft jealous of him. When John actually shows up, he's not only a tiny bit pleased (_well, that was actually predictable, but isn't it marvelous to be right?_).

John Watson doesn't expect it to happen. He's not in the army anymore, that's true, and even if he's broken his brain still preserves a bit of logic, but of course he cannot foresee what's going to happen. It's actually pretty exciting, to be honest (_what a wonderful thought_).  
Sherlock Holmes is the weirdest human being he's ever met—and he's met a lot of people. At the same time, Sherlock is fascinating, brilliant and completely, utterly crazy. Because he might be as mad as a March hare or as a hatter, but the doctor doesn't think that in a negative way, and he wants to see him again.  
The army doctor is asked by the consulting detective to share a flat with a nonchalance that nearly makes him open his mouth wide. When Sherlock actually shows up, he's not only a tiny bit confused (_well, he actually loves it, it's the most wonderful thing ever_).

Sherlock Holmes knows that he can fix John Watson and so he does. In the meanwhile, he's even capable of solving a crime. How neat.  
John Watson is the most entertaining challenge ever.  
As predicted, he's not average. An average man would probably flee from the sociopath that in less than 24 hours manages to make him change his habitation, unknowingly makes him text a murderer, convinces half of the people in a restaurant that he's gay and then drags him in the streets of London while chasing a cab in spite of a presumed psychosomatic limp.  
John doesn't flee from him. John stays. John stays and he _loves_ it.  
John shoots a cabbie for him right before Sherlock does something incredibly clever and incredibly stupid at the same time to feed his gears and manages to irritate his awful brother, Mycroft, on the same day.  
John shoots a cabbie and ends a life only to protect him and to Sherlock that's a completely unexpected revelation. It's wonderful. This man, this man that he has just fixed, breaks the laws of society and of every form of ethic just to make him stay, and they barely know each other. This man, this short man in a questionable jumper, is certainly going to be both the ruin and the salvation of him. He makes Sherlock remember a wish he has expressed just once in what is now a really distant dream.  
It's like Sherlock's staying in a gothic cathedral. Said cathedral is as dark as the night; Sherlock cannot remember how light feels like. Then, all of a sudden, even if there's no God at all, something changes. Light comes from above, illuminating him through the high windows. A gentle music starts playing and it doesn't disturb him at all, even if it hates noise. There's music, but the world still sounds quiet and the consulting detective suddenly adores it.  
John is as mad as him and Sherlock only wants to ask: "_Where have you been until now?"_

John Watson somewhat knows that Sherlock Holmes can fix him and he lets him. In the meanwhile, he kills someone for the first time. How very odd.  
Sherlock Holmes is the best thing that has ever happened to him.  
As predicted, he's not a bad man. A bad man wouldn't probably spend his time trying to chase killers, after all, and wouldn't probably care about his stupid leg; he also makes him move into the messiest flat in the history of flats, makes him text a murderer without knowing it (_what the actual hell_), convinces half of the people in a restaurant that he's gay and then John even lets him lead him in the streets of London in a chase that is the stupidest thing he's ever done (and John lets him. He's invaded Afghanistan, after all.).  
Sherlock wants him to stay. John stays. John stays and Sherlock _loves_ it, and so does he.  
John shoots a cabbie to protect him before Sherlock does something completely, absolutely and utterly crazy yet fantastic at the same time and manages to irritate his arch-enemy who is, in fact, his terribly annoying brother (and, apparently, the British government).  
John shoots a cabbie and kills a man for the first time only to make Sherlock stay and to him that's a completely unexpected revelation. It's wonderful. This man, this man that is so clever and so stupid at the same time that it almost hurts, this man has managed to completely capture him and fascinate him in less than a day. This man, this man that comes in a fancy coat, is certainly going to be both the ruin and the salvation of him. He makes John remember a wish he has expressed just once in what is now a really distant dream.  
It's like John's staying in an illuminated hospital. There's light everywhere, it's unbearable. Everything is so quiet, like in space, and John cannot remember how life sounds like. Then, all of a sudden, he can hear it. It sounds like the most beautiful sound ever and a bit like Sherlock, too. The hospital has a sense, now, and the army doctor suddenly adores it.  
Sherlock is as mad as him and John only wants to ask: "_Where have you been until now?"_

The fact that John's staying makes the world look quieter. Which doesn't make sense.  
But sentiment _never_ makes sense, or so Sherlock reckons.

The fact that Sherlock's staying makes his heart beat again. Which doesn't make sense.  
But things like these _never_ make sense, or so John reckons.

When they're solving the case of the Chinese smugglers, Sherlock realizes he needs John. Which is, in spite of its predictability, the oddest thing that could happen to him.  
He doesn't really want to see Sebastian again: he doesn't miss the days he spent at the university and he certainly doesn't miss his old acquaintances. But he needs the work, and so he goes to the bank. Sebastian is as bothering as ever and Sherlock actually wants to annoy him. He manages to do so, fighting against his instinct.  
John perfectly understands what he does. _Spectacular_.  
John also goes on a date with Sarah, who is probably one of the dullest women on the whole planet. This actually reminds Sherlock that John, even if not average, is normal, and it kind of disappoints him. Not because he's jealous (John's not gay and he's asexual) but just because—_really, John_—Sarah Sawyer? (_He's not jealous. You cannot be jealous of someone you already own, can you. She's only a distraction, he'll forget her_.)  
Then, when Sherlock's doing something that's actually important and doesn't include a boring woman, John disappears. Along with her. Irrelevant detail.  
The world has never been noisier.  
Sherlock forces the gears to work even faster just to _solve_ that. It's vital, it's necessary. It's not just a case like every other case: this is a case _in which John has been kidnapped_. And since John is not a factor that Sherlock can just delete from his set of data, he has to find him.  
When Sherlock does, John's beaten and tied to a chair (_his blood looks beautiful, he'd like to taste it but he knows that's definitely not fine)_ but still alive, and it's a miracle.  
Words cannot describe how Sherlock feels when John saves him again, even if practically immobilized, and when he's finally able to undo the knots that make him unable to move.  
John doesn't regret it. John doesn't regret anything that has happened to him since he started sharing a flat with him at 221B Baker Street. _Spectacular._

When they're solving the case of the Chinese smugglers, John realizes he needs Sherlock. Which is, in spite of its predictability, the oddest thing that could happen to him.  
Sherlock casually takes him to the bank and, well, the bank itself is quite amazing, probably one of the hugest buildings John has ever seen. Sherlock has always been a genius, the doctor learns, and of course he's always been detested. John suddenly feels atrociously sorry for the sociopath. He kind of avenges himself, though, by simply irritating his old 'friend' Sebastian. John doesn't know what is better, the expression on the banker's face or the smirk on Sherlock's when he realizes that John has understood him. _Amazing.  
_John also goes on a date with Sarah, who is probably one of the greatest women on the planet. This actually makes John feel a little weird because, even if is completely and utterly devoted to Sherlock, he still wants to begin a romantic relationship with her. It's not like he feels guilty about that (Sherlock's asexual and he's not gay); only really, really weird. (_It's normal. He's normal. Sarah is not going to be the right one, because none of the women he has dated before is the right one, but he still enjoys her company. He feels owned by Sherlock, though. In a certain sense. That's quite worrying. Still, John doesn't think it's wrong.)_  
Then, when Sherlock is busy solving the case in spite of John's attempt to have a good time with Sarah Sawyer, he gets knocked down, beaten and tied to a chair, along with his date, which isn't particularly nice. Sherlock is nowhere to be seen.  
The world has never been quieter.  
He's probably going to die and he doesn't know what to do. It would be really nice if he could at least avoid Sarah's death, but it is unlikely.  
When the consulting detective finds him, as late as ever, it's a miracle. They even manage to save the woman's life.  
Words cannot describe how John feels when Sherlock saves him again, the look of relief on his face, the sensation of Sherlock's hand undoing the knots that immobilize him. He knows that Sherlock's been subjecting himself to a lot of pressure only to find him.  
Sherlock doesn't regret it. Sherlock doesn't regret anything that has happened to him since he started sharing a flat with him at 221B Baker Street. _Amazing_.

After a while, when Sherlock's brain finds a double, things get interesting.  
After a while, when John's heart finds an opponent, things get complicated.

The bomber's brain is probably one of the most interesting things ever or, at least, this is Sherlock's opinion on the merit. The bomber's a proper genius and would probably understand the gears. The criminal is a nice distraction: he's quite mad and pretty insane, and not in the way Sherlock is. He cannot deny that the criminal is interesting, that his game is thrilling. He feels flattered, of course, but all games have to end, don't they? The bomber's a nice distraction, yes, but he won't last for long. Sherlock doesn't really _need_ him; he needs John, and only John.  
And then, right in the middle of one of the rounds, John gets disappointed in him, and that is—at the same time—very predictable and very unexpected.  
John is normal, but not average. John is broken, like him. But John has a heart, when Sherlock is not even supposed to have one: he does, however, even if it doesn't function properly. The point is, John expects it too.  
John expects him to _care_ about people that mean absolutely nothing to him, which is completely unfair. He's never really cared about anyone. Well, anyone except John, and he's not even sure he cares about him in the right way (_he probably doesn't_). He's a sociopath, after all, he knows he's wired wrong. John knows it too. But John is a good man, and they both forget it sometimes. John cares because, even if he's as mad as him, he has a good heart (_even if it's pretty screwed up_). John doesn't understand that caring about one person in his life is enough for him; John doesn't understand that he's not a hero, not in the common sense of the term. Sherlock fails at fulfilling John's expectations, _just for once.  
_And yet, the blogger still helps him. Sherlock couldn't be more delighted.

The bomber's brain is probably one of the most terrible things ever or, at least, this is John's opinion on the merit. The bomber's a proper genius (and a bastard) and is probably good at understanding Sherlock, while John keeps failing at it. He's crazy, and not in the way his flat-mate is: he should be put in a mental hospital, goddammit. He's _evil_. The fact that he's free to walk in the streets is utterly terrifying. There's a pretty huge difference between being a high-functioning sociopath and a criminal mastermind. And the criminal wants to play a game with Sherlock, a dangerous and immoral game. Sherlock's delighted by that, John can see that; he's actually enthusiastic about it. And John, honestly, cannot take it.  
John cannot stand the fact that the criminal's managed to attract Sherlock's attention more than him (_he cannot be jealous of someone he doesn't own, can he_). When Sherlock gets completely focused on that fool's game, John reaches his limit.  
John is a madman, that's true, but he has a heart. And he's pretty sure that Sherlock has one, too. He probably expects too much from him, anyway. The detective has become his heroic ideal—or maybe he was from the start, the doctor doesn't even care anymore. That's why he gets so hurt, in the end. Maybe he's disappointing Sherlock, proving that he's just _normal_. It's not important, anyway, as long as he can keep Sherlock with him. He can see that his words look like an unknown language to him, and his reply only makes him feel worse, but he can suffer a bit more, if it's for Sherlock. In the end, it's always been for Sherlock. The doctor's hating him, right now, and with a passion.  
And yet, John still helps him. Sherlock couldn't be more delighted, could he.

Eventually, Sherlock does something really clever and really stupid and what he gets is a pretty singular scene in a pool.  
There's John. _His_ John. "This is a turn up, isn't it, Sherlock?"  
This would be a humiliation, wouldn't it? It would mean that Sherlock got him completely wrong from the beginning: this is the fall of his honour and intellect. This is what _should_ be crossing Sherlock's mind. But what is _actually_ crossing it sounds more like: "_No, John, no, you cannot do this to me, not you, please, anyone but you. This isn't about my pride, this is completely and utterly about you. You've been the first person I've ever cared about and you cannot do this to me, John. You made the world quieter and you translated the dots into a human language, now you can't just be the bomber, you cannot betray me, not now nor ever. You don't realize what you've done to me, do you, you don't realize that I needed you without knowing it and before meeting you and that I've been searching for someone like you since I was born and then I met you and everything made sense. Please, tell me this is a lie, tell me it's not you, tell me that you're still my John. I'm begging you and I've never begged anyone in all my life. Tell me you're still mine and that this is not who you are_".  
Sherlock is perfectly aware that he looks like a scared child, because that's what he _is_.

Eventually, Sherlock does something really clever and really stupid and what John gets is being covered in explosives in a pool.  
There's Sherlock. There's also the bomber speaking. "This is a turn up, isn't it, Sherlock?"  
This is terrible, isn't it? He's going to die any second now, if he doesn't repeat exactly what the bomber says. Which is, on balance, a lot of lies. John only hopes that Sherlock will manage to see that he's being forced to do all this. He's blinking an SOS. Sherlock will notice it, right?  
His flat-mate looks like a scared child, and everything that John can think of is: _"No, Sherlock, don't look at me like that, don't, just don't. Can't you see that I'm terrified and scared and, god, Sherlock, I'm not a criminal. Well, okay, I am, but I would never betray you, you understand that, do you? I'm not even that clever. Please, Sherlock, stop looking so lost, it breaks my heart and trust me, breaking something that's already destroyed is a quite difficult task. Why would I even wish to hurt you, you gave my life a meaning, you gave sounds to London, and I care about you, it's not wrong to love someone who gives your life a sense, even it's completely illogical, but what's logical about us anyway? Please, Sherlock. Never look at me like that. Never again._"  
He looks completely desperate, because that's what he _is_.

The bomber's name turns out to be James Moriarty. Molly Hooper's ex. That is _definitely_ a turn up. He's indeed a good actor, isn't he?  
There are some terrible moments in which their lives keep being at stake and John offers his life to save Sherlock, that doesn't seem to completely understand it.  
There is a really wonderful moment when everything seems to be alright in which they can look at each other and they actually _laugh_.  
There is, obviously, another awful moment that is completely unexpected.

Sherlock's holding a gun. He's pointing it at the explosives. There's only one way to end it all, isn't it? He looks at John and John nods. That's enough. That has always been enough.

There is a precious moment in which Sherlock's mind reflects John's heart and vice versa and they're completing each other like they were some sort of strange tao.  
_"It's okay for me to die like this, you know. It's okay for me to die like this with you, as long as it's not useless, and in this case it isn't. It would be okay for me to die with you in any case, actually, because you've made me a whole and I'll never repay you enough for that. You made the world quieter. You made the world noisier. You made the world have a sense and it never did. It's more than okay for me to die like this with you. I'll never thank you enough for that. Just let me look at you for one final moment and it will be enough. It has always been. You're the most marvelous and monstrous being I've ever met. You are, actually, the only person I've ever wanted to meet. Now it's time to pull that trigger."_

In the end, they don't have to die—which is wonderful.  
But they would have died and they would have been happy with that. That's important.

Their meeting is indeed a fateful meeting.  
They've never properly thanked Mike Stamford for that. They probably should.


	6. A phoenix on a mantelpiece

When Sherlock is a consulting detective and lives in a flat at 221B Baker Street, he lives with John Watson to make the world look right and be a whole (_sentiment_).  
He's lying on his bed, in a room where there's a periodic table hanging on the wall instead of a picture because pictures might be beautiful, but science is tidier. He's dreaming.

There's a huge palace. The floor is made of tiles of chiseled gold, alternated with mosaics made of red marble; the walls are white with exquisite decorations made in plaster and lead and they're high, high, _high_. They're covered in bookshelves and guns: the books are new, ancient, big, small, interesting, boring; the guns all look the same. There is no ceiling, only a black sky filled with dots and lines that look like galaxies and constellations; some of them are scarlet. But even if the sky is so dark there's a lot of light.  
Everything is a mess. There are tables covered in brand new violins and sheets of paper. There are chairs with random scarves on them. There are bowls full of human thumbs, trays filled with bullets, an animal skull made of gems, severed limbs with accurate labels on them, bottles of sand, some weapons, a couple of really deadly looking plants, one or two never-rotting corpses and tons of equations stacked up in a corner. A bust of Napoleon is looking at a giant globe that was once covered in nicotine patches (there are now empty syringes knocked into it). The resurrected English language is lying next to a group of noisy bees. A dog is howling somewhere. There are a thousand filing cabinets filled with useful data and an empty waste bin in a corner.  
Noise is filling the air. It's a noise that reminds of iron and steel and shattered glass. It sounds a bit more harmonic, though.  
Everything smells like honey and gunpowder.

Sherlock is sitting on the floor, in front of a fireplace. There's a skull on the mantelpiece, next to a stabbed Cluedo board and a bottle of milk. It's a really small space, but it doesn't fail at being as messy as the rest of the palace.  
Sherlock's hair has been cut freshly; he's still really skinny, but in a healthier way. He's wearing a long, fancy black coat and a blue scarf. His azure eyes are shining.  
This is Sherlock when he's not a junkie and this is Sherlock when he's _John's_.  
He's playing with some bones. He's lining them in a precise scheme (_this time, he knows which scheme it is_). He seems quite absorbed in this activity.  
All of a sudden, he smirks and turns his face towards the figure that is approaching him. "You're as fat as ever, brother," he says gaily.  
"For God's sake, Sherlock," Mycroft whispers angrily.  
This is Mycroft when he was in university. He hasn't started his diet yet and he should do so really soon. He's wearing a grey suit and has a black umbrella.  
He's looking at the mess in disbelief, probably because there's much more of it. Somewhere, though, something's missing and he can feel it. For a few seconds he tries to find a chair on which he can sit on; he gives up, ponders over sitting on the floor, decides he's never going to do that and gingerly remains standing.  
"This place has become even more chaotic, and I thought it was an impossible task," he comments in a resigned tone.  
"Go to your place then, and don't bother me", comes the dry reply.  
The older brother ignores him. "So, has something happened to you, recently?"  
"Well, quite a lot of things have happened to me, actually. Something that you might like, too" Sherlock replies. He looks like he's having fun, a thing that lately has happened really often. "Look, look at my forearms!" He rolls up his sleeves, showing his arms to his brother. The skin is white and smooth; there are no traces of the red plugs, only nicotine patches.  
"You're not a mosaic anymore!" Mycroft exclaims, relieved.  
"No," confirms Sherlock. "I liked the pattern, but it was killing me, wasn't it? So I took the plugs and now they're in the pavement. It's beautiful now. More beautiful than before."  
"Yes, brother, it indeed is precious." Mycroft looks more serene.  
Sherlock's still playing with the bones. His brother's quite sure they're skull bones. "What are you doing?" he asks, just for the sake of being annoying.  
Sherlock gives him a scathing look. "Why in the world do I always have to state the obvious? I'm ordering these bones. These skull bones."  
"Whose skull bones are they?" Mycroft insists.  
"Oh, just John's," his younger brother says with a careless voice.  
The man who's going to become the British government raises an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"  
"Oh, for God's sake," Sherlock sighs. "You _do_ know about him. You offered him money to spy on me, you annoying penguin."  
"Not in this palace. Focus, Sherlock. I've only come here once, remember?"  
"Of course I remember, I remember everything", the consulting detective scowls. "I remember everything we said. I told you I was going to stop using drugs, and that's what I did. I told you I was going to leave that awful flat and meet someone fantastic."  
"And you did that, too?"  
"Yes," Sherlock says, and he sounds proud of himself. "That's precisely what I did. I met John."  
"Could you tell me something about him?" the older brother asks, interested.  
"John Watson, an army doctor that got shot during the war and was sent back to London. A normal man."  
"How can a normal man be fantastic?" asks Mycroft, skeptical.  
"I said 'normal', not 'average'. He's not average, not at all. He's _amazing_."  
"Tell me more about him. He must be a pretty strange fellow, considering that I've asked him to spy on you."  
"Remember when I got kicked out of that tremendous flat?" Sherlock asks.  
"Yes. You kept shooting at the furniture." murmurs Mycroft.  
"Well, I _told_ you I was going to leave it, I _hated_ it," continues Sherlock. "Anyways, I was looking for a flatshare and I happened to tell that to Mike Stamford. He brought me John."  
"And—"  
"And I deduced him, yes. He was an army doctor in Afghanistan, got shot in the shoulder, got sent back to London, hated it, had a psychosomatic limp, was looking for a flatshare. He wears really ugly jumpers."  
"You thought of him as a challenge, did you?"  
Sherlock laughs. "Yes. Yes, at first I did. I knew I was going to fix him. But he didn't look average and I wanted to be sure, so I asked him to come live with me in one of Mrs Hudson's flats."  
"And he accepted?"  
"Yes! And you know what he told me when I explained to him how I had deduced him?" Sherlock's tone now is cheerful, like that of a five-year-old.  
"What?"  
"_He told me I was amazing._" Sherlock's smiling openly now. "Which makes him amazing, too."

Mycroft doesn't know what to say. His brother's euphoric; not exactly a situation he has faced before. He chooses to listen.  
"He told me I was amazing and I dragged him in a crime scene and he made it into English," Sherlock continues. He doesn't make sense, but he doesn't care. "He told me I was being not good because there was sentiment there, and I didn't know how to cope with it, but he told me, so everything was all right. There was a lot of noise and I could see letters everywhere and they didn't make anything but noise, but I was quicker because he was _listening_, Mycroft, and that was enough to make the world quieter. He was listening to it without actually hearing it and he loved it, he loved all the noise he was taking. He loved the noise and it gave a meaning to the world, because I know everything but the difference between right and wrong is an utter mystery to me. But he knows it and he loves the fact that I don't. And he loves me, too. Because he was a wreck and I fixed him, because he needed the noise and I gave it to him. He smelt like sand and sun and blood and silence. He was all I needed without knowing it, can you believe that? _Sentiment_, Mycroft. I adore him. I absolutely, utterly, completely _adore_ him and it doesn't make sense. But he stays anyway. He's as mad as me."  
"Is he?"  
"Yes. The desert broke him and he needed me. He lives on battlefields and crime scenes like me, but only to make his heart beat. He's killed a man to protect me, and it went against his morals, but he did it anyway. He cherishes me. And I cherish him, too. I've been searching for him for so long without knowing it. He's a marvel. He's sick, too, he's a monster. Just like me."  
"Are you telling me he fixed you?"  
"More or less. There's still so much inside me that needs to be fixed. But he made me function correctly. Look, I shouldn't even have a heart, but I do, and it was his, but now it's _mine_. I rule him, and he still leads me. He wanted to die when I wanted to die. Maybe I wanted to die because it was going to be with him. I'm almost sure I did. He's amazing and I'm amazing, too, so that's why I wanted to die in that way." Sherlock's lying on the floor, now; he's ecstatic. His eyes are closed. "I think I want him to kill me, someday. It would be perfect. Wouldn't it be perfect if he kept my brain in a jar on his nightstand?"  
Mycroft's expression's indecipherable. Sherlock to him looks like some sort of crazy phoenix, born again from its ashes only to burn again in a fire that doesn't make sense. If this John has been his salvation, Mycroft's quite sure he's going to be his ruin, too. He doesn't reply.

"He can make the world look right, Mycroft." Sherlock murmurs after a while. "How could I possibly not love him? It's not like I want to be in a relationship with him. I cannot. I don't work like that, I don't feel things that way. I'm a sociopath, I'm not supposed to. And still, I fell into the abyss of sentiment. I was frightened at first without being scared, you know that I like to put myself in danger just for the sake of it. I just want him to… _stay_."  
"What are you going to do now, brother?"  
Sherlock opens his eyes again. "I'll see for how long he's going to stay."  
"What makes you think he'll leave?"  
Sherlock looks sad, now. "I'll hurt him, in the end. I always break things, eventually. And it's really easy to ruin people. I don't want to break him, but I will. Just for the sake of science, just because I like to experiment. I'll break him just to see if I can fix him again, just to see if he can forgive me. I resurrected him once and I'll want to do it twice. He probably will, he's fantastic. Maybe he'll want normal things, in the end. A normal life. A normal wife with normal kids, a normal family. I don't know. I am not normal, I can't give him normal. I can only give him crime scenes, and he likes them now, but will he get tired of them? Will he get tired of _me_? Look at the sky, the red dots and lines are all _him_. He's in my brain, and I cannot stay in his mind because he's normal and my brain might be too scary or too big, I want to be in his heart, which is mine. I don't know how to. I don't do these things, Mycroft. I've always worked alone. It has always been Sherlock and his intellect. Now it's always Sherlock and John. I'm terrified by the thought of him leaving. Because I have a project, too, you know."  
"What project?"  
"I've always thought I was going to die young, to die while I was a mosaic and _because_ I was a mosaic. Then I started thinking that I wanted him to end me, sooner or later. Things have changed, now. There is an idea I have, and I'm never going to tell you, but it involves him, and I'm not even sure about telling him about it. If I ever tell someone, it'll be him. Only him and no one else. But now it's not the right moment—I don't even know if there's going to be a right moment." Sherlock's practically whining. "That's why I'm playing with his skull bones. As long as I can play with them, I won't hurt him. I think he wants to play with my bones, too, but he'll never tell me, he's too good for that. I'll never tell _him_ because I'm too bad for that. Do you think he'll stay with me until the end? Tell me you wish that, too." Sherlock sighs.

"I always wish the best for you, brother, and you know that." Mycroft sighs, too. He takes another look at Sherlock's mind. "This place has changed quite a lot, hasn't it?"  
"Of course it has, I needed more room for John." Sherlock is not lying on the floor anymore, he's sitting on it like he was doing before. "I had to use the waste bin—it had never happened. It felt quite strange, at first."  
"What did you the delete?"  
"Apparently it was the solar system."  
Mycroft opens his eyes wide. "_You deleted the solar system to make room for an army doctor?_"  
"He's not just an army doctor, Mycroft, he's _my_ army doctor. And my blogger. And—" The consulting detective doesn't finish the sentence.  
"And?"  
"I'm never going to tell you that," Sherlock says shaking his head. "Never."  
"Why?" Mycroft frowns.  
"You'd just tax me with sentiment. I'd prefer to avoid that. It's much more complicated, but your mind's too average for that."  
Mycroft lifts his eyes. "Fine. I'm going to leave now, you know I'm a busy man."  
"You're right, all that cake is not certainly going to eat itself," his younger brother smirks.  
The future British government gives him a judging look and slowly walks away.  
Sherlock cracks a smile. Did Mycroft really not notice the gears?  
They're as noisy and hungry as ever, but they're stable, too, like they've been oiled.  
The skull bones are ordered, now. They're forming the words 'soul mate'.

Sherlock remains alone in the smell of honey and gunpowder and the noise of the gears, laughing like a fool. He cannot wait to wake up.

When he wakes up, he has to face John.  
"You finished the milk. Again. How the hell I'm supposed to have breakfast?" When Sherlock goes downstairs John is already complaining. Sherlock looks at him.  
"It was an experiment, John," he says.  
"How come your experiments always involve depriving me of a good breakfast?" John asks, but he's smiling (a quite resigned smile, to be honest).  
"You don't seem that bothered, though, do you?"  
John smirks. He doesn't say anything, he only drinks his tea without milk.  
_I'm going to ask you, someday_, Sherlock thinks. _And I really hope you'll say yes. This is a bliss._

The whole day is a bliss, actually. They catch a really pretentious killer and forget to buy milk. They don't really care, though.


	7. A ruby in a fireplace

When John is a blogger and lives in a flat at 221B Baker Street, he lives with Sherlock Holmes to make the world look right and be a whole (_necessity_).  
He's lying on his bed, in a room where there's a really particular and important gun into a drawer instead of something more common, because he might be normal, but he doesn't _want_ normal. He's dreaming.

There's a huge desert. The sand is red, made of dried red blood cells; there's no sun in the sky, which is not as dark as before: there are dots on it—they look like stars, but John is sure they aren't. Some of them are scarlet. It's a pleasant sight—the sand smells like injuries and honey. It looks rusty. On John's left there's his parents' house, on his right there's London. The first, which is the size of a doll house, is grey and lifeless. The second is slightly bigger and coloured; it looks like the real London, with all its inhabitants and noisy streets. The doctor is really tempted to go towards the city, but he's somewhat afraid of doing that; there must be a reason if he's not there even if he loves it so much, right?  
There is a war somewhere; John can hear men screaming, bombs exploding, the sound of machineguns and what indeed is an activated minefield. But to John those sounds don't seem desperate—they don't sound like pain and hurt and blood and death—they're somewhat harmonic. He now knows that war _is_ his war, but he doesn't wish to do anything about it. He doesn't wish to interrupt it. He never will.  
He's not wearing his helmet. In compensation, there is something really odd about his body: it's a wound. It's a gunshot wound, right in his left shoulder: it's very deep and it's bleeding a lot. When the blood touches the ground after drenching his clothes, though, it just becomes as dry as the sand. It doesn't hurt.  
John doesn't know what to do. He has a really precise idea of what this place actually is—_it's not a battlefield, it never has been_—but he's afraid he might be wrong. His deduction skills are not really good, after all.  
He knows the tomb of the silver soldier is there, somewhere.  
There's a rock in front of him; it's a really huge rock and it looks like it's made of bone.  
There's also a fireplace. There's a skull on the mantelpiece, next to a stabbed Cluedo board and a bottle of milk. He wonders how such a small space could possibly be so messy.  
Something's shining on the ground. John walks towards it and he picks it up. It's a scalpel. A further look makes him realize that there are lots of them buried in the sand; he also finds scissors, catgut, broken bottles and hedgehog spines. He's really perplexed. For a second, he wants to use all those objects to suture his wound, but it's only a fleeting thought. Still, he has nothing to do, so he decides to sit on the rock.

After a while he hears someone approaching. Their footsteps are light but slow.  
"Bored of the bottles again?" John asks, only a tiny bit surprised.  
"I'm always bored of them. But they're never bored of me," Harry replies.  
This is Harriet when she was a teenager. She got taller and skinnier; her hair is light brown, worn out and styled in two thin braids. She's wearing an oversized pink jumper, a skirt and really huge boots. Her eyes seem ever bigger now, watery and sprinkled with red veins. She has purple shadows under them. She looks terribly ill. There is something wrong with her nose: it's a bit crooked. John realizes that this Harriet has already lived the traumatic experience of being beaten by a group of bullies because she was a lesbian (_he remembers taking her home and helping her and removing the blood from her face. He remembers letting her cry on his shoulder and muttering useless words and the guilt of not being there when it had happened and he feels sick, so sick it hurts_).  
This Harriet is a teenager but, at the same time, this Harriet is Harriet _now_.  
Her eyes are judging and inquisitive and they make her brother feel uncomfortable.  
"You're injured," she says. She doesn't seem particularly concerned.  
"Well, yes," John confirms. He touches his wound with his right hand and observes the blood on his fingers.  
"Does it hurt?" Harriet comes a little closer, vaguely curious.  
"Not at all," John says. "It's quite odd, isn't it?"  
"This whole place is quite odd, John," Harry comments.  
"What brings you here anyway?" John asks.  
Harry sighs. "I wanted to check if you were alright. We haven't been in touch for a while."  
Once more, she sits on the rock with him and John has the terrible image of a nurse taking care of him, which is pretty quaint, since he's always been the one who took care of her.  
"Right," John nods. "How are things with Clara?"  
"They were so deteriorated that we decided to erase them," her sister replies in an almost sweet tone.  
"I'm… really sorry for that, Harry." John would like to hug her, but it would be really weird, wouldn't it? They're not like that, they've never been. One thing is hugging your sister when she's crying and bleeding, one thing is hugging your sister when you've never gotten along and there are no traumas at stake.  
"When I got this," she says pointing at her nose, "You said that I was going to be happy, someday. That I was going to find the right one. I think I did. She was the right one for a long period of my life. She isn't anymore. So, really, you don't need to make that face."  
John opens his mouth, uncertain about what to say. He chooses to say nothing.  
"We've changed, Clara and I. _You_ and I, too," she continues. "But I want you to tell me how you've changed. Because at first it was the desert, John, but now it's just you."  
John stands up, blood still dripping from his shoulder.  
"Quite a lot of things have happened to me, actually. This is going to be an awfully long conversation, but I'll try to summarize everything and we'll eventually get to the point. Okay?"  
His sister nods, raising an eyebrow.  
"But first, I want you to show me that dead soldier again. I need to see him. Because I've changed a lot, and he might have changed, too."  
Harriet opens her eyes wide, saying nothing. Then she stands up, too, and leads him to that corpse that is actually a work of Art.

The canyon is still there. They fall into it like they're flying.  
The soldier is almost the same—there's only a little difference. There's no lead where he got shot, only what looks like a ruby. It makes John want to laugh, for some reason. He caresses the dead man's face for a while, Harry silently watching him.  
John closes his eyes and the canyon fades, and they're sitting on the rock again.

"Harriet," he begins. "Remember when I told you that I was living on the gunshots because I was really awful? Remember when I told you that the world, that _London_ was grey and dull and I was going to spend my life here only to go on? Remember when I told you that I was going to get shot and be sent home?"  
"Yes," says Harry. She looks a bit skeptical, now.  
"That's what happened, Harry, I got shot and they sent me back to London. There was a gun in my drawer and I could only think of that, because the world was so quiet and so boring that it hurt. Then something really beautiful happened."  
"What happened, John?" she asks.  
"No, no, Harry, don't ask questions, you have to follow me, okay? Well, it was something _really_ wonderful and amazing, but I'm not going to talk about it yet. Not yet, Harry, it's really complicated and it requires some kind of preparation."  
"Okay then," the girls says. "Go on."  
"When those horrid kids broke your nose, I told you that you were going to find the right one, someday. And you told me that Clara's been the right one for you, too. Have you ever wondered why I kept bringing home a girl after another and none of them was the right one?"  
"Yes."  
"None of them understood, me. I mean, _really_ understood me and what I wanted. They were normal. I never wanted normal. Or maybe I did, but it was before the war, before the desert, before the wound. When I came back from the war, I needed someone fantastic. I didn't know that I did, though. I only thought that I was going to end up with a bullet in my brain." John is choosing the words really carefully, because he needs her to comprehend. "I was desperate, Harry. I was limping. I had a psychosomatic limp, Harriet, can you believe that? And a therapist! She thought it was PTSD, when it was actually the opposite, and it took me an annoying man that believed to be the British government to make me understand that. I had _a cane_ and I kept limping in the streets of London at various speeds, it was atrocious. And I had no place to come back to, if you exclude a terrible, colourless flat. The landlady was about to kick me out of there, too, because I couldn't pay the rent. So I started looking for a flatshare, but then I gave up, no one would have wanted me for a flat-mate. Then I met Mike Stamford."  
"That guy from Bart's?"  
"Yes. He brought me to Sherlock."  
Harry frowns. "Sherlock? What kind of name is that?"  
"Well, his brother's called Mycroft, so I guess his family is a bit partial for unusual names. However," the doctor continues. "He's a genius. Probably the most weird-looking man on the whole planet, he has an impossible face and, well, cool cheekbones. However, he's completely mad. I'm not kidding. He's probably the craziest person I've ever met, and he's clever. Not just clever, _awfully_ clever. The most clever man ever."  
"Is he?"  
"Yes. In less than a minute he was telling me my whole life story, he was _deducing_ me. He shocked me. I felt like I was… _naked_ in front of him. I couldn't hide anything from him, which was really weird, yet fascinating. He was charismatic without really wanting to be. And he asked me to share a flat with him, just like that. All of a sudden."  
Harry has the strangest look on her face. "Don't tell me you said yes."  
"_I did!"_ John's laughing now. "I did. And, to be honest, I think it was the best decision I've ever made. Words cannot describe him, really. He looks about 12, he's arrogant, pompous, imperious, rude, strangely likeable and surprisingly charming. He made me curious. He has crime scenes in his pockets and smells like a battlefield."  
"That doesn't even have a meaning in English," his sister complains.  
"No, you're right, it doesn't. I think it expresses my feelings, though. He has a the brain of a computer but completely ignores how society works. He knows a lot of absurd stuff, for example the kind of underwear gay men are supposed to wear, but he's spectacularly ignorant about the fact that the Earth goes round the sun. He's… absurd, really." John closes his eyes. "We went to see that flat—it was really nice, by the way—and he brought me to a crime scene."  
"Did he?" Harry sounds surprised now.  
"Yes. He's a—uhm—consulting detective. That means, shortly, that when the police can't solve crimes, he does that for them. He doesn't even get paid for it. I think it helps him to go on. I love it. I blog about it, it's kind of odd. And, you know, he has no morals whatsoever, and I always have to lead him. He's amazing and he thinks I'm amazing, too. He made London an alive place again. He's my gunshots, now."  
"You care deeply about him, don't you?"  
"Yes, he's the most important person in my life. I wouldn't mind spending it with him. You know, growing old together and chasing criminals. It's a pretty normal thing, but he'd make it completely extravagant, I'm quite sure of it." _If he doesn't get bored of me too soon_, he thinks. _You've never seen him when he's bored, he's terrible. He looks like he's going to ruin everything. His brain could eat everything in those moments. I'm somewhat afraid of him. Afraid of him getting bored of me, because I'm just an average man who's kind of mad, and that's all. I think he cares about me, though—which is a bliss, really. I hope it'll last._  
Harry stands up. "You're a hypocrite," she says in a cold tone.

John opens his eyes, frowning. "Wait, what?"  
"You've always told me it was just me, you've always told me it was all right, but it was just me, and that's the same thing you told our parents. It was you, too." Harriet looks angry, and hurt. John's afraid he might know what she's implying.  
"What?" he asks anyway.  
The answer is simple and foreseeable. "Gay."  
The blogger is getting really tired of this. "No, Harriet, I'm not."  
"Have you seen yourself when you talk about him? This whole conversation sounded like a love confession!"  
"I told you it was complicated," her brother sighs. "It's not like that. I mean, I do love him, he saved me but… It's not like that."  
"And how is it, then?" Harriet asks in a mocking tone.  
"I was not going to be happy without him," John begins. "Which sounds terribly sappy, but it's true. He's utterly mad and we're almost opposites, but he completes me. You don't have to get me wrong—we're not in a relationship. At least, not in a romantic relationship, the thought of doing romantic stuff with him is quite ridiculous, just imagine how bringing him roses would be like. He doesn't even feel things that way. But he needs me, and I need him, and nothing's ever going to change that. We always think that a soul mate has to be a romantic partner, too, but I don't believe that anymore. I reckon we're breaking all the boundaries. It's… thrilling, really."  
"But what makes him different from a best friend, then?"  
"We resurrected each other. It's a beautiful and unique thing." John smiles. "I still like women, and I do date them, even if I know that I'll still go back to him. He's just much more important than them. If I had to choose between a normal wife with normal kids and a whole life with him, I'd choose Sherlock. Always."  
"You're completely crazy," Harry comments in the end. "But you know that, and you're living with a man as crazy as you. And you look… happier." She sighs. "And you judged me for being an alcoholic."  
John smirks and she slowly walks away. He's still bleeding and the war is still on.  
His heart is a very strange place, indeed.

John is left alone in the smell of injuries and honey, laughing like a fool. He cannot wait to wake up.

When he wakes up, he has to face Sherlock.  
Apparently he's planning to blow up the kitchen for no apparent reason. When John asks for one, everything he gets is "It's an experiment". He doesn't even try to question it.  
"Are you going to make worry about the possible explosion of our flat for the next thirty years?" he asks in a nonchalant voice.  
Sherlock looks at him. The detective is trying to read him, and the blogger hopes that he will read what he's actually thinking. _If you'll still want me, I'm going to stay here until I die._  
Sherlock doesn't reply. He probably doesn't know how to.

The whole day is a bliss, actually. Sherlock concludes his experiment and they still have their kitchen—even if a bit burnt. They don't really care, though.


	8. A lightning on a pavement

Their parting is indeed a catastrophic parting.

Sherlock Holmes doesn't expect it to happen. He reckons it's quite cruel, actually. As a resurrected man who's not supposed to have a heart but _has_ one, as a sociopath who's afraid of having emotions but _has _them, as the consulting detective to his doctor and blogger, he reckons it's quite cruel. He sees it like some sort of revenge the world is finally able to achieve. After a life or isolation, after a life of vivisecting scenario after scenario and human after human, he thinks it's the revenge of a world he's always mocked, sure of being superior to it. The crying girl in the white dress becomes the laughing devil in the black robe and takes him away from everything he's ever wanted and everything he's lost. Moriarty is just an excuse; the world used him only to make him suffer. He's a consulting criminal, after all. This is Sherlock's idea on the merit. It's an idea drenched in sentiment.  
It's also the idea that crosses his mind when he hits the pavement and the world becomes terribly noisy again. It's the idea that crosses his mind when he hurts the only person he's never wanted to hurt. It's the end of the miracle that brought him to life again.  
It's just that: the end.

John Watson doesn't expect it to happen. He reckons it's quite cruel, actually. As a resurrected man who's not supposed to live but _does_, as a madman who survives on danger and adrenaline following a greater mind, as the army doctor and blogger to his consulting detective, he reckons it's quite cruel. He sees it like some sort of revenge the world is finally able to achieve. After a life of masked solitude, after a life of trying to be a good man but ending up being a bad one, he thinks it's the revenge of a world he's never trusted, sure of being inferior to it. The gun, _the_ gun that now sits placidly into his drawer, _the_ gun that is a weapon of salvation, gains another purpose and is ready to take him away from everything he's ever wanted and everything he's lost. Moriarty's just an excuse; it would have all happened anyway, sooner or later. It's an atrocious betrayal, but he was expecting it. This is John's idea on the merit. It's an idea drenched in suffering.  
It's also the idea that crosses his mind when Sherlock hits the pavement and he feels like struck by a lightning as the world becomes awfully quiet again. It's the idea that crosses his mind when he's hurt by the only person he's never wanted to be hurt by. It's the end of the miracle that brought him to life again.  
It's just that: the end.

However, quite a lot of things happen before the end.

Irene Adler makes her apparition and confuses Sherlock, which is very quaint.  
Irene Adler makes her apparition and confuses John, which is kind of usual.

Irene Adler is a crop-wielding lesbian dominatrix with a complicated mind, and to the world's only consulting detective she represents a challenge. She's clever, and he wants to hurry up and beat her.  
At first it's just work, feed for his gears. When he sees her, though, something changes.  
_This is slyness_, he finds himself thinking. He chooses to be seen in a disguise, but she breaks his mask and presents herself without one. She destroys his weapon, his brain: she blocks his deduction skills and makes him feel vulnerable. She's the symbol of a world he doesn't understand—a world that doesn't properly alarm him, but makes him somewhat uncomfortable because he cannot comprehend it. How is he even expected to react to a woman like her? A woman that shows herself without anything, anything at all, not just without clothes, but without a sign that can tell him something about her? A woman that cannot be deduced? A woman that is clever enough to understand they're really different yet similar?  
He gets confused and intrigued.

Irene Adler is a crop-wielding lesbian dominatrix with no boundaries whatsoever, and to an army doctor that is also a blogger she represents an obstacle. She's clever, and he only wants her to hurry up and go away.  
At first he simply dislikes her. When she starts catching his flat-mate's attention, though, something changes. And it is jealousy, jealousy of a completely new kind.  
_This is absurd_, he finds himself thinking. She comes with no clothes on and starts flirting with Sherlock like it's normal—that simply doesn't happen, people don't flirt with him, they just _don't_. She's beautiful, too, which in a normal situation would probably please him, but this scenario involves Sherlock and it definitely cannot be normal. And the worst thing is not that she fancies Sherlock, it's not the amount of witty comments she makes, it's the fact that Sherlock seems to like her back, even if they belong to two different worlds and John knows that. Still, that's not the _real_ point. The point is that now John has become boring.  
He gets confused and frustrated.

Things go incredibly bad when _The Woman_ dies.

When Irene Adler dies, Sherlock doesn't face sentiment, even if John obviously believes so. He's… disappointed, actually, disappointed and annoyed. She just dies like that, in a dull and common way, and she's not allowed to—because she's special, just like him. She's clever, just like him. She manipulates people and obtains what she wants, just like him.  
She's a marvel and a monster, just like him (_and like John. But John's not important at the moment—wait, no, John's always important, always, even if he cannot understand him, but she can, she can understand him, so she's important too, she's a priority, he cannot foresee when she's going to flee from him though, he doesn't know for how long he'll be able to hold her in his hands and study her, because she's not John, Sherlock knows John will stay, but she's something new and complicated and wonderful and he cannot just let her go_).  
And yet, there's a corpse on a slab, a cigarette between his fingers and protesting gears in his brain. She made the world quieter, somehow, even if a different way from John's; there was some rudimental form of his gears in her mind, he's certain of this. But they were useless, weren't they?  
Irene Adler dies, the world becomes a bit more wrong and he's left with a puzzle in the form of a locked mobile phone.

When Irene Adler dies, Sherlock has to face sentiment and John finds it utterly wrong.  
How are you supposed to deal with a sociopath that refuses his own heart and claims that everything is alright when it obviously isn't? How are you supposed to say "I'm really sorry for your loss, even if you barely knew her. I'm really sorry for your loss of someone who could actually understand you while I can't. I'm sorry I'm like this. But I hope I'll be enough"?  
He simply doesn't know how to face the whole situation: Sherlock doesn't feel things that way—he just doesn't, he never did, there is no legitimate reason to start now (_also, isn't Sherlock supposed to have feelings towards him? Because they're two sides of the same coin and two halves of a whole? Isn't John allowed to demand that? Because if even John knows that he'll always come back to Sherlock after every date, Sherlock knows it for sure, and doesn't he appreciate it? Sherlock doesn't have sentiments, but if he does, why are they for that woman? Why?_).  
And yet, there's a consulting detective in their flat that does exactly the same things he used to do before meeting that dominatrix, only in a worryingly sadder way. There is a man in their flat that has become unapproachable and John feels invisible and useless.  
Irene Adler dies, the world becomes a bit more wrong and he's left with a Sherlock that doesn't look like his Sherlock.

Too bad that _The Woman_ is still alive.

Irene Adler is still alive and if there is a thing that Sherlock doesn't forgive her, it's not the lying (_sometimes you need to die_), it's the sentiment. It has never been a game of hearts, so she deserves to be beaten—even more than before. So he beats her; simple as that.  
He still saves her, though. She still isn't John, but he's narcissistic enough to like a mind similar to his; therefore, she saves her. Even if she isn't _that_ important.  
The difficult part comes when he has to lie to John. He does that, but he feels guilty.  
He even says 'please'.

Irene Adler is still alive and if there is a thing that John doesn't forgive her, it's not the sentiment (_he understands that_), it's the lying. She decided to play with Sherlock's heart knowing that she was going to hurt him, which is precisely what he's never going to accept. He was ready to let her take him, but it was all a game to her. Well, in the end she deserves to be beheaded. She really deserves it. She wasn't _that_ important, wasn't she (_she was, dammit_)?  
The difficult part comes when he has to lie to Sherlock. He does that, but he feels guilty.  
Sherlock even says 'please'.

Then, there's the case of Henry Knight.

There is the case of Henry Knight and two impossible things happen.  
The first one harms Sherlock's intellect: it's called _doubt_. For the first time in his life he experiences doubt and he doesn't want the thing to happen ever again. This is nothing like Adler's impossibility to deduce, this is nothing like blocking his deduction skills; this is way worse: it's his brain not working properly, his senses failing and his mind being annihilated. It's the worst thing that has ever happened to him. In the end, his gears solve it and everything falls right into its place again. He even gets the chance to see a man exploding (_for the very first time—it's quite messy, actually. Interesting kind of data, though_).  
The second one harms Sherlock's heart (_oh, no, sentiment. It's slowly eating into his intellectual life_): it's called John-being-stubbornly-normal. Sherlock finds it annoying and flattering at the same time; he also understands why John reacts in that way.  
Sherlock says that he hasn't got friends because it's true: John isn't a friend. He's not a lover, either. He's something unique. _They_'re something unique. But John is normal, after all, and so he feels the need to label their relationship. When Sherlock tells him that he only has one friend to apologize he means "_if you really need to call ourselves friends, then do it. I'll accept every label you're going to give us. Just understand that you're the only one_".

There is the case of Henry Knight and two impossible things happen.  
The first one harms John's conception of reality: it's called _terror_. For the first time in his life he experiences terror and he doesn't want the thing to happen ever again. This is nothing like being in the army, nothing like seeing men dying under the fire of gunshots; this is way worse: it's his body not working properly, his heart stopping for a moment and his mind's reactions being annihilated. It's the worst thing that has ever happened to him. In the end, Sherlock drugs him (_for God's sake!_) and solves it and everything becomes logical and acceptable again. He even gets the chance to see Sherlock scared (_for the very first time—it's absolutely odd, actually. Quite an interesting sight, even if slightly worrying_).  
The second one harms John's heart (_pure sentiment, yes. Infecting it like poison_): it's called Sherlock-being-an-absolute-asshole. When Sherlock is scared, Sherlock says that he hasn't got friends: John has a normal reaction. When something is so extravagant and unique that it breaks every boundary, when something is so peculiar that defies the laws of definition, you have to give it a name. You have to give it a name _precisely_ because you cannot think of any. Sherlock says that they aren't friends, and that's right: they're much more. But they're not lovers, either, and society would say that they're more closer to the definition of friends. So, John gets hurt. And when Sherlock apologizes and accepts his definition, his placebo in a myriad of words that mean nothing, John knows that Sherlock is mentally accusing him of being dull. He'd like to say "_I know what you're thinking, and I'm okay with that. I'm not as brilliant as you, I'm glad you understand that_". He doesn't. In the end, Sherlock even says he's amazing. They're even.

Then, there is the end. The final act. The tragedy on the bloodied stage.

Sherlock consciously chooses it. He consciously chooses it in order to protect the ones he loves (_John in particular_), in order to beat a man that has become a terribly dangerous challenge, knowing that he's going to annihilate the next years of his life in order to track down the members of a web that looks as big as a whole planet; knowing that he's going to hurt the other half of his whole being; knowing that he's going to hide, and pretend, and kill. But it is necessary: it's the last resort, and he has to accept it. So he does.  
He becomes a liar and destroys John's world without any hesitation; he becomes a liar and makes John watch as he jumps off St. Bart's; he becomes a liar and lets John bury him (_no, he actually buries Moriarty_); he becomes a liar and listens to an elegy he's not supposed to hear. His note is blood on a pavement and his mourners are left with a cold tombstone of falsehood.  
His jump is the final act of a life that has been a tragedy turned into a comedy, a life that has seen a heterogeneous mixture of good and bad characters and a master villain, a life that was supposed to be a homage to the intellect and has become an offering to the sentiment.  
Sherlock draws the curtains over himself and over his own story.

John watches it. John watches it against his own will and tries, until the last second, to refuse the evidence of his own eyes. But he cannot; he simply cannot. And the cruelest thing about the whole situation is that Sherlock is lying to him, lying about who he is (_who they are_) and about everything they've lived together; lying about the fact that they've saved each other and would have continued to save each other; lying about being heart and mind. Sherlock lies to him _knowing_ to be lying and this utterly infuriates him.  
When Sherlock hits the ground, John dies with him. When Sherlock is buried, John is buried with him. And when John is unveiling his own heart in front of Sherlock's tombstone, he's also laying aside it in a coffin covered in velvet and filled of white lilies. A really huge part of him is crying and shouting inside of his chest, but he's been in the army and has endured death, injuries and pain: he's a soldier. He's a soldier and, as expected, he soldiers on (_it hurts_).

Then, there is the end! The final act! The tragedy on the bloodied stage!  
But the curtains are supposed to rise again, the crowd to applaud to the encore and the protagonists to read the lines of a beautifully written dialogue—once more!  
And, while John doesn't know anything about this, Sherlock doesn't know _when_—he doesn't know when, or if the doctor will take him back.  
For now, though, the world is terribly noisy and terribly silent (_make it stop_).

There are two broken men sitting in two different armchairs in two different parts of the world. The only things that they share are a destructive sorrow and the feeling of lacking something. They're pretty much like they were before their meeting; this time, though, they know exactly what they're missing.

Their parting is indeed a catastrophic parting.


	9. A red lamb in the marble

When Sherlock is a liar who's supposed to be dead but isn't, when Sherlock is a hunter who tracks down and collects the threads of a spider web that's too big for everyone, when Sherlock is _just_ Sherlock and he's lost without his blogger, he has a dream.

He has a dream when he doesn't want to. He has a dream when he lives in shabby hotel rooms and pretends to be a man he actually isn't, when the time of sulking on the sofa wearing dressing gowns has become the time of wearing bulletproof vests under his coat, when the time of shooting the walls in a vain attempt to end his boredom has become the time of smashing brains in a single shot (_still, where is Moran? Where is he?_).  
He has a dream when his gears are so hungry and so tired to actually function badly, when his hair is too long and messy like when he was a junkie, when he eats so rarely that he's actually on the verge of anorexia and his cheekbones of are as sharp as ever, while his eyes are so big and sorrowful to appear dead (_John would have known what to do in this case_).  
He has a dream when his whole being is screaming for becoming a mosaic again (_no, no, he must focus_) and he feels like he's missing the most important part of his body.  
He has a dream after killing a man and listening to Mycroft ("_You should take better care of yourself, brother. Can't you see your current appearance? You look awful._").  
He has a dream, and not a very pleasant one.

His mind palace looks strange. Nothing has really changed—there's red marble on the floor, bottles of sand on the bookshelves, gears crying on the skyscraper—except for the sky. The canvas that once was black is now scarlet like arterial blood (_the dots and the lines look so small, they hurt, they're like open wounds, someone has to suture them_). His vision has changed, though: everything's grey, except for the ceiling. The noise is unbearable and the smell of honey is suffocating. He's lying supine on the golden floor. Even if the thought doesn't make sense in English (_nothing actually does_), he feels like his limbs are casually rolling around the room. If he could just smash his own brain, he would. He closes his eyes; his whole body feels like an open wound, but he doesn't scream (_not yet_).

"I usually dream of tigers, lately," he says in a whining voice to the figure that is approaching him—probably Mycroft. "Moran used to hunt tigers, before he came to London and started working for Moriarty. He's a sniper. He's kind of a tiger, too. But I cannot catch him, I don't know where he is, I'm always in his sights, though, so I always have to be careful. But when I sleep the tigers haunt me, they like to come here, and I have to run, and they break everything without touching anything. I think I'm dying. I think they're killing me. The tigers."  
"I—I haven't seen them, though," comes the reply in an uncertain tone.  
It's a familiar voice, but definitely not Mycroft's.  
With a huge effort, Sherlock sits up and opens his eyes again.  
"_John_," he murmurs, surprised.

John Watson is standing beside him, a half-smile on his face. He looks both perplexed and fascinated by the whole situation. There is something very odd about him.  
His hair is cut short, he's slightly tanned and he's wearing his military uniform—there's even a stethoscope around his neck; he's skinnier and younger. He's not limping and his eyes look very different. Usually, Sherlock can see in John's eyes the stars of the desert and the guns of salvation; usually, Sherlock can see in John's pupils exploding mines and noisy gunshots; usually, Sherlock can tell exactly what John is thinking and how to react to it; usually, Sherlock can see John in colours but today he cannot: the doctor's as grey as everything else. There are lower-case letters floating near his head: they usually say "_john_", but this time they say "_john watson - army doctor in afghanistan_". The consulting detective feels his heart sinking as he realizes that _this_ John is not _his_ John. This is John when he is a doctor in Afghanistan and hasn't been shot yet. This is John with no wounds on his shoulder and no blood on his fingers. This is John before Sherlock and before being the John that _needs_ Sherlock. This is the John that's never going to love Sherlock and the John that Sherlock's never going to love.  
This is John but, at the same time, this is a stranger.

"Yes, that's me," the army doctor replies. "But how do you know my name?"  
"You have no idea who I am, have you?" Sherlock asks, a bit sad.  
"None at all," John confirms. "Should I?"  
Sherlock sighs. "No, not yet. You don't know who _you_ are, either."  
"Sorry?" The soldier frowns. He's so average that Sherlock wants to punch him.  
"You've been in the desert for less than three months and none of your patients has died. You don't know yourself. I do, though," the consulting detective replies.  
"I won't hide the fact that I'm pretty confused," John admits.  
"Of course you're confused, you're not mine yet," Sherlock replies. He ignores the other man's expression. "One of your patients is going to die, and you're going to think that you're awful, and you are, you're absolutely awful, but also amazing, and you don't know it yet. You're as innocent as a lamb, now, you think you're a good man and a good doctor, but you're only a good doctor. You're going to get shot and they'll send you back to London, but you'll hate it. You're going to feel and be very damaged. Not now, though. Not when you're like this. I'm really glad that we're not going to meet when you're like this, you're so dull and grey and ordinary that it hurts. My John is normal, but I love it, and I need it. But I'm never going to like this you and this you is never going to like me. You need the war to become mine."  
"I need the war to become _yours_? Sorry, but I'm not following." John's eyes are wide-open, one of his eyebrows is raised.  
"I'm going to save you. I'm going to save you and you're going to save me and our meeting is going to be an accident, really, but the most fateful accident ever." Sherlock stands up even if the pain in his whole body is atrocious. He feels like throwing up. This is not just sentiment; sentiment is not supposed to hurt like this. "You're going to love me very much, someday."  
"Am I?"  
Sherlock's voice is shaking. "Yes. And I'm going to do the same. But I'm also going to hurt you. I'm going to hurt you a lot, and I'm so sorry. I've never been sorry but now I am. Sorry if I'm going to break you. Just know that I'm going to break myself, too."

"Okay, you're not feeling well," the doctor says, coming closer. He's worried (probably more worried about his mental state than about his health). "You need to sit down. Why did you even get up in the first place? Look at you, you're about to puke."  
"Oh, for God's sake, you're so dull, even the letters are wrong," Sherlock whispers. "And don't even _try_ to touch me, the grey has contaminated you." He simply lets himself fall on the floor. John emits a surprised sound. "You should leave this place. You should leave it and go back to the desert and get shot and become my John."  
"Okay, would you kindly explain to me what the hell are you saying? Starting from your name, possibly?" John sits down beside him. Sherlock has to fight a serious impulse to kick him (or to punch himself in the face).  
"Oh, fine, whatever," the consulting detective sighs. "I'm Sherlock Holmes. Consulting detective."  
"Is that a real job?" John frowns.  
"I'm the only one in the world. I invented it."  
"And what do you do?"  
"I'm a genius. I solve crimes so that my brain doesn't rot. But you don't believe anything I'm saying because you think I'm a psychopath. For your information, I'm a sociopath. A high-functioning sociopath. My current state, which is terrible, is due to the fact that I miss something. I miss the real you." Sherlock's now covering his eyes with his hands. "And the real you is missing me, too. And it's all my fault. Well, not properly, but it's almost the truth."  
"You told me I was going to be _yours_. I think it's odd, you now, since I'm not gay," says John.  
Sherlock rolls his eyes under his eyelids. "You're being stubbornly average. You are not gay, you're right, and I'm not gay either, I'm asexual, and we're not going to be in a romantic relationship." He's annoyed, now.  
"But then why—"  
"Why did I say that we're going to love each other very much? Because it's true. But you're so dull, no, _this version of you_ is so dull and you can't possibly comprehend it, when you usually do. You're going to be so perfect when you get shot. This is utterly frustrating and I'm going to be straightforward about it. We're going to be the most important people of our lives, we're going to complete each other. And if your question is something similar to _'are you telling me that I'm going to find out I'm actually gay and shag you?_', the answer is no. It's always going to be no, and thankfully you're going to understand it. For your information, we're going to live in the same flat—"  
"Really?" John asks.  
"_Yes,_ we are, and if you dare interrupting me again I swear I'll throw something at you—and don't tempt me, I will. I'm enough instable for that. Anyway, we're going to live in the same flat and you're still going to date women; _you're heterosexual, congratulations_. I'm not going to give you kudos for that, except for sarcastic ones. You're still going to adore me and worship me and I'm going to do the same thing, because you're a heart and I'm a brain and we need each other. But this you is so obsessed with the absolutely stupid concept of '_a soul mate equals a romantic partner', _like most people. Your minds are too small to understand that people shouldn't be divided into acquaintances, enemies, friends or lovers, and when you actually face relationships that are a bit more complicated you simply refuse them and try to make them into what most pleases your atrophied synapses," Sherlock snaps. "Doesn't it bother you?"  
"What?"  
"The fact that you're missing everything that doesn't comply with your agonizing neurons."

Sherlock opens his eyes again. The doctor's looking at him with a strange expression into his eyes and it makes Sherlock want to die, somehow.  
It's a painfully strange expression. What crosses Sherlock's mind when he sees it doesn't make sense in English or in any other language, but it doesn't matter.  
He wonders what Michelangelo thought when he saw blocks of marble. Because Michelangelo said that he just carved those beautiful sculpted figures in the marble: they were already there, silently sleeping and waiting to be unveiled. He feels exactly like he's looking at a block of marble. There's a sparkle into John's eyes and that sparkle is screaming "_Look! I'm here, Sherlock, I'm here! I'm inside this man, just waiting for the bullet to crack the clay of my skin and for you to fix the engines of my heart. It's all here, you see. Even if you despise me now, I'm going to be perfect someday. You're going to make me perfect! So, endure this for a bit more. I'll be worth of your forgiveness, someday. While you're not actually worth of mine._" _  
_Sherlock is thinking that he'd really like to pull out John's orbs to see if he's right, to see if _his_ John's really hiding behind them, with the stars and the gunshots and the colours and everything. But he can't. He knows it's wrong.  
Sherlock has been insulting this defective prototype of his soul mate for the last minutes, but he's _staying_. The detective can see in his behaviour the draft of a future temperamental trait he's going to like very much.

"You're quite arrogant, aren't you," John says. "Anyway, since we're going to be so important to each other, would you explain to me why you're going to hurt me? Just so I know, I mean. If it's not too much to ask."  
Sherlock takes a deep breath. "There is going to be a period of bliss. We're going to meet and it's going to be a miracle, even if I don't believe in miracles. We're both going to function properly for a while. You're going to make the world into English for me and I'm going to make it into gunshots for you. We're going to be marvels and monsters, together. We're going to be silence and noise. And then I'm going to fall."  
John raises an eyebrow. "How?"  
"I'm literally going to fall, John. I'm going to jump off a building."  
"You're going to kill yourself?"  
Sherlock laughs. "Oh, no. It would have been much easier and obnoxiously dull. I'm going to fake my suicide. I'm going to make you watch as I fall and hit the ground. I'm going to listen to your speech at my funeral."  
"Well, mate, that's bloody sick," the doctor bursts out. "Why in the world are you going to do that?"  
"Because I'm a narcissistic, egotistic and selfish man who needs an audience for his insanity and will do anything in order to keep what he wants, even if that means breaking it, because he's sure he can fix it. Because I'm a madman with hungry gears and a gigantic ego who needs to defeat anyone who's as clever as him. Because I solved the riddle, and I had to die—but I didn't want to. Because there's a burden on my shoulders, and I put it there, because I feel like I'm the worst and I always have to act like I'm the best, like I'm a martyr."  
"Could you speak like a normal human being for one second?" John sounds exasperated.  
"Oh, for God's sake," Sherlock moans. "I'm going to fake my suicide to track down the web of criminal mastermind while the whole world believes I'm dead. Happy now?"  
"At least it makes sense," John comments.  
They don't speak for a while; then the army doctor talks again. "Can I ask you a question?"  
"Go on," Sherlock sighs.  
"Where the hell am I?"  
"What do you think?"  
"I'd say it's a palace, but the furniture is too odd for that," John says.  
Sherlock doesn't comment.  
"Is it a palace?"  
Sherlock rolls his eyes. "No, it's not a palace."  
"Then what is it?"  
Again, Sherlock doesn't comment.  
"Is there an exit?"  
"Somewhere. I've never found it."  
"I think I'll try to."  
"Go. Leave me with the tigers."  
John stands up and looks around. It's Sherlock's turn to speak. "Can _I_ ask you a question?"  
"Yeah, sure," the army doctor answers.  
"What do you think of this place?"  
"It's… weird. Very fascinating. I enjoyed visiting it, but—"  
"But you'd never spend your life here, would you?"  
"…Yeah."  
Sherlock smirks. "I cannot wait for the desert to break you," he says as John walks away.

On today's newspaper there's something interesting about a man named Ronald Adair.


	10. A steel bud in the clay

When John is a betrayed man who's supposed to believe a lie but doesn't, when John is a blogger whose blog is dead because the man on which it was based upon is, when John is _just_ John and he's lost without his sociopath, he has a dream.

He has a dream when he doesn't want to. He has a dream when he lives in a shabby flat where he still makes the bed in the way soldiers use to, when the time of running in the streets of London and writing his own chronicles has become the time of talking to a therapist who will never actually help him, when the time of pointing _the_ gun to the head of criminals with the hand of adrenaline has become the time of thinking about pulling the trigger to end the life of a heart that is not even pumping blood anymore (_please, don't be dead, don't be_).  
He has a dream when the city is made of silence and the houses of ashes, when his body is so tired to actually feel dead, when he sleeps and dreams of hospitals and leaps and of arms he cannot reach, when his leg is not limping but he can almost imagine it doing so—he can imagine it so well it causes him pain (_Sherlock would have known what to do in this case_).  
He has a dream when his whole being is screaming to be in the desert again (_no, no, it does him no good_) and he feels like he's missing the most important part of his body.  
He has a dream after curing a patient and speaking to Mike ("_No, mate, it's nice to see you again. I'm fine, really, I'm getting over it, don't worry._").  
He has a dream, and not a very pleasant one.

His heart desert looks strange. Nothing has really changed—there's the red sand that smells of rust, the giant rock made of bone, the scalpels buried in the dried blood—except for the doll houses, which are now dust, and the noise. The air that was once filled with screams, gunshots and explosions is now completely silent (_it feels so suffocating, it hurts, it's like being a giant open wound, someone has to make some noise_). John can feel his own breath getting sucked into the emptiness of the atmosphere, making his lungs agonize in the effort of keeping him alive. The silence is unbearable and the smell of blood is atrocious. He's lying supine on the rock. Even if the thought doesn't make sense at all (_nothing actually does_), he can feel that the wound in his shoulder, that is still bleeding, is poisoning his own body, quietly absorbing his soul. If he could just stab his own sternum, he would. He closes his eyes; his whole body feels like an infected organ, but he doesn't scream (_soldier on_).

"I started dreaming of suicides, lately," he says in a resigned voice to the figure that is approaching him—probably Harriet. "Of _his_ suicide, I mean. And of mine, to a certain extent. Oh, of course I'm never going to do it, I survived when I was a wreck and now that I'm a wreck again I'll just go on like I did before. But, you know, dreaming of leaps and partings is not really nice. The last time you came here was actually a lot of time ago. Why are you here, Harriet? Are you going to mock me again? Like you always did? Eh, Harry?"  
"My name's not Harriet," comes the reply in a dry tone.  
It's a familiar voice, but definitely not Harry's.  
On the verge of a panic attack, John sits up and opens his eyes again.  
"_Sherlock,_" he whispers angrily. "You utter, utter _bastard_."

Sherlock Holmes is standing beside his, distractedly scratching one of his forearms. He's wearing a ruined coat over a ruined shirt and his hair is too long. He's younger and pale and there are purple shadows under his eyes; he's way too skinny. He's clearly suffering from a drug addiction and he looks like there's not energy left into his body. His expression is absurdly quaint: he's evidently fascinated by the place, but he's putting a huge effort into looking totally uninterested. There is something very depressing about him.  
His azure eyes are big and sad. Usually, John can see in Sherlock's eyes the lights of the city and the gears of genius; usually, John can see in Sherlock's pupils the silence of a palace and the buzzing of the bees; usually, John can tell exactly what Sherlock's thoughts mean in English and how to translate them; usually, John can see Sherlock's soul shining behind his steel coldness but today he cannot: the consulting detective's as bad as any other man. There is a moment, though, a really short moment in which he doesn't realize those facts; there is a moment, a really short moment in which everything he wants to do is punching Sherlock in the face and _break_ it, break his nose and his teeth and make him cry for once. Then, there is the moment of enlightenment: _this _Sherlock is not _his_ Sherlock. This is Sherlock when he's a junkie in the disreputable streets of London and is slowly dying. This is Sherlock who's not yet a genius and if he is, he's a bloomed bud hidden behind the mask of a wreck. This is Sherlock before John and before being the Sherlock that _needs_ John. This is the Sherlock that's never going to love John and the Sherlock that John's never going to love.  
This is Sherlock but, at the same time, this is a stranger.

"I don't even know you," Sherlock retorts. "Even if being called 'bastard' is not exactly much of a change."  
"You don't—are you sure you don't know me?" John asks. Sherlock is staring at him with his piercing eyes, obviously deducing him.  
"Yes, but I know that—" Sherlock begins, but John interrupts him with a wave of his right hand.  
"No, don't do that. Don't deduce me, please, I already know that you're going to humiliate me and I don't think it's fair since you're not even you."  
"How do you know that?" Sherlock asks, perplexed. "And what do you mean with 'you're not even you'?"  
"Oh, for God's sake," John murmurs. "You're asking questions now. Are you sure you're the real Sherlock Holmes?"  
"How—"  
John starts laughing. "I think this is the worst dream I've ever had. Or should I say nightmare? I cannot even tell the difference anymore. The fact that I still manage to tell the difference between when I'm asleep and when I'm awake is a miracle, you know. The miracle that you didn't give me."  
"I don't know what you're talking about," Sherlock admits, and it evidently costs him a lot.  
"Hah, right," John smirks. "Are you in the mood for chatting, you twat?"  
"Are you going to keep insulting me?" Sherlock enquires, raising an eyebrow.  
"Probably," John confirms. "Not my fault if you're a sick asshole, Sherlock. Let's start from the beginning, right? Have a seat. And show me your forearms."  
"Sorry?" Sherlock's voice is pure disbelief.  
"Show me your forearms. As you have noticed, I'm a doctor," the blogger repeats.  
"This is quite bizarre." Rolling up his sleeves, the consulting detective comes closer to the doctor. There are deep wounds on his skin, and John knows that they're a reflection of how actually drugs are hurting the man. "Are you satisfied?"  
"You know, the first time that you told me you had been a junkie I didn't believe you. I couldn't imagine you. Now I can. You're always an arrogant prat, but you look way sadder. I wish I could tell you that when I wake up," says John. "Too bad I can't."  
Sherlock frowns. "_Who_ are you?"  
The doctor sighs. "My name's John Watson. You're going to love me very much someday."  
Sherlock scoffs. "Am I?"  
"Yes. And I'm going to do the same. And then you're going to ruin everything by jumping of a building and splattering on a pavement."  
"I reckon this need further explanation," Sherlock comments.  
"Oh, it indeed does," John agrees.

Sherlock actually follows John's advice and sits on the rock next to him. "Speak."  
"Oh, good, you're imperious as always," the doctor comments. "Fine. You're a junkie now, and even if you're a genius you're slowly wasting your life. I know why you do it. It's because of your brain, because you always hear so much noise and you hate it, and you need to calm it down somehow. Your brain is a machine and you solve things to keep it under control, but when doing that is not enough, then cocaine is."  
"Yes, skipping to the part in which you get to know me—" Sherlock insists.  
"You're going to stop being a junkie, somehow. Then you'll start working seriously with the police, and with seriously I don't mean between a syringe and another, I mean—well—seriously. It's going to help you. We're going to meet because we'll both be looking for a flatshare. Mike Stamford's going to make us meet each other."  
"Why would I look for a flatshare?"  
"Apparently, you kept shooting the furniture."  
"It was probably dull."  
"Yeah, however, our meeting is going to be an accident, but the most fateful accident ever," John continues. He notices his hands are shaking. "This is funny."  
"What?"  
"There are a lot of things that I'd like to tell you, but you already know them because that wonderful machine you have in your skull has already deduced them. I can only tell you things that haven't happened to you yet. It's funny."  
"Tell me more about them," Sherlock demands. "I want to know everything."  
John understands exactly what Sherlock is meaning. "You've always loved silence. I've always loved noise. I was a doctor in the desert and I needed it to keep myself on the verge of sanity—like you need the work. We'll meet and there's going to be a period of absolute bliss; we're going to fix each other. You're going to fix my psychosomatic limp and I'm going to fix your hyperactive brain. You're going to give me all the noise that I need and when I'll walk with you I'll see battlefields and smell gunpowder. I'm going to be your moral compass and to make the world into English for you."  
"I don't understand English. It doesn't make sense. The words mean nothing while the canvas does, it always does."  
"I know. But I'll understand _you_, so it's going to work. I think you'll love me for that. I don't know."  
Sherlock raises an eyebrow. "I don't _love_, I'm—"  
"An asexual high-functioning sociopath, yes," John says with impatience. "And you already know I'm straight, and normal, but you've never treated me like I was average, so don't start now, please. It's quite idiotic of you."  
For a second Sherlock looks completely vacant, then he understands and all he manages to say is "Oh".  
"_Oh_. Indeed."

John wonders what sculptors think when they model clay. He's never been an artist, even if chisels and scalpels can be used to suture wounds and heal sores and _that_ is definitely a form of art: restoring the body and turn it again into perfection; curing it and making it even better than before. And even if John can do that, he's not an artist; in this moment, though, he feels like one. Who's standing beside him is the draft of the man that is going to save him and lead him towards the zenith of salvation, the man that is going to destroy him and lead him towards the nadir of oblivion. Right now, the azimuth between his Sherlock and this Sherlock is so wide that he can barely comprehend it, but he sees it (_lines and angles and all_).  
If he could just break all the layers of clay and all the syringes that are hiding his soul mate's true form, he would. But seeing him would probably kill him: he's not going to wake up in a world where he's still alive, after all. Seeing him again would only make the pain worse.  
And this man, this broken man that is in the desert with him doesn't know anything about his fall, he doesn't know that he's going to die young—well, he knows it because John has told him, but the details are essential, and they're still a mystery to him. John could be a good man, now: he could not tell him. But he's thinking "_You ruined me. You ruined me and I'm not going to spare you. I'm going to tell you everything about how you're going to end yourself and how you're going to shatter me. I'm a bad man, Sherlock. You know that, don't you?_"; he's not going to have scruples. It's too late for that.

"You're going to be fantastic," Sherlock says in the most innocent tone.  
"Yes," John confirms. "Yes, I am. I think we're going to be… soul mates, if you want."  
"But not in a romantic relationship," Sherlock insists.  
"No," the doctor says shaking his head. "Not at all. I'm going to date women and you're going to be absolutely terrible about that, but hey—I won't blame you. I'll be okay with that. You know, having wife and children would have been nice, but then—"  
"I told Mycroft I was going to meet someone like you, hah!" Sherlock interrupts him. He's grinning like a fool. "I knew I was right, of course I was, I—" He stops talking for a second. "Wait, you said I was going to commit suicide, explain yourself."  
"I don't know why you're going to do that, actually," John says. "I just don't know. You're going to jump off a goddamn hospital, Sherlock, and you're going to call me on the phone before that you're going to _lie_ to me, you prick."  
The consulting detective looks inquisitive. "What am I going to tell you?"  
"You're going to make me watch you as you jump, you _sicko_," John continues, feeling the rage boiling inside his chest. "You're going to make me watch as you hit the ground!"  
"Yes, I understood that, now can you _please_ tell me what I'm going to tell you before jumping?" Sherlock asks again, impatiently. "I reckon it might be important."  
"I told you, you're going to lie," John replies. "About literally everything. You're going to tell me that you're a fake, that you had researched me to impress me, all sorts of bullshit."  
"And you don't believe that?" Sherlock's still looking at him.  
"Of course I don't. No one will ever convince me that you told me a lie. Not even you." John pauses. "I was going to spend the rest of my life with you."  
Sherlock stands up. "Oh, there's always hope for that!" He's smiling.  
"Wh—what?" John frowns.  
"Me lying about my abilities? If you know me so well, you know I've got a tremendously big ego," Sherlock comments raising his eyebrows. "It would be atrociously out of character, don't you think? Also, you didn't tell me anything about the circumstances of the event, but I presume they're really peculiar or dangerous, so…"  
"You cannot be still alive. I took your pulse," John protests. "I buried you."  
"Oh, yes, but I'm a genius, remember?" Sherlock is slowly walking away.  
"Wait, where are you going?" John cries.  
"Back to my syringes, John Watson," Sherlock replies. "This place is absolutely wonderful, but doesn't the noise bother you?"  
"You like this place?"  
"I utterly adore it. Too bad there's nothing here to feed my gears, I'd really like to stay here otherwise," Sherlock sighs. "It's the most wonderful heart I could have ever imagine. And I'm going to fix it, don't worry. If I did it once, I can do it twice."  
"You don't even realize what you're saying, do you?" John murmurs.  
"Oh, _I_ don't, but apparently you do," says Sherlock as he disappears in the sand and John is left alone on the rock, confused and breathing air that smells of iron and pain.

On today's newspaper there's something interesting about a man named Ronald Adair.


	11. A resurrection in a gun sight

Sometimes there are fractures that cannot be healed and scars that will never fade.

For example, there's the fracture that Sherlock leaves in John's chest as he dies.  
It's a fracture that's never going to be healed because it's simply too big and complex. When your soul mate dies, you die with them. It's a stupid thing to say because it has never been stated, but John's will is made of steel and his faith in Sherlock is as strong as the curse of a god, and this makes the situation even worse. The most important person in his life dies; John dies, too. But he's a soldier and, even if Sherlock's dead, he's going to fight his battles.  
John misses him. Of course he does. He's endured worse wounds, though, so he goes on.  
It'll just leave an invisible scar on his skin, but he can live with that.

One year after Sherlock's fall, he marries Mary Morstan. He marries Mary because she's lovely, understanding and nice, and because he loves her. It's a really different kind of love if compared to the one he felt towards Sherlock: it's romantic love. It's normal, it's average. It's what everyone was expecting from him and what he's always wanted; even if completely mad and broken, he's a straightforward bloke and straightforward blokes _want_ to have a wife and children—at least, this is what John wants when London is not a battlefield anymore, when he has to be _just_ John Watson and no one comprehends him. It's also a thing that, when Sherlock was alive, was absolutely prohibited to him, mostly because Sherlock had always been more important to him than a steady relationship. They'd always known that and, in spite of John's repetitive complaints about it, they never really _cared_. It was some sort of mute whisper between a date and another, of silent agreement between a woman and another; it was a long-life commitment they had established without even talking about it. It was perfection. Or, at least, the kind of crazy life that they had wished for.  
But Sherlock dies and so does their pact. John Watson marries Mary Morstan because he loves her, but she's never going to be Sherlock and he knows that (_she knows it, too_).

When John is Mary's husband, he's fantastic because there's no one to remind him that he's awful. He works in a clinic, when he comes home she's always there, waiting for him, and everything's good. He's still interested in crimes and reads a lot of newspapers (_because those murders reminds him of Sherlock and of gunshots_). Those newspapers are his placebo, those words of blood and death and crime written down on paper are the relics of a life he's lived and that's never going to come back: the proof that Sherlock Holmes existed and that he's been a very important part of John's life, making living at 221B Baker Street the best experience he's ever had. They're the medicine he uses to soothe the pain of his wounds and to mitigate the ache of the agonizing flower that is blooming into his bosom, the flower of anguish and nostalgia. Mary understands that or, at least, she pretends to, which is precisely what makes her one of the most lovable creatures John's ever met.  
He's never going to grow old with Sherlock, but maybe he can do that with Mary; growing old with her, filling their house with a family.

Truth is, their marriage doesn't last, and it doesn't last because _Mary_ doesn't.  
One year after their marriage and two years after the fall she dies, taking with her a lot of hopes and a lot of dreams. John buries her, but it's not worse than burying Sherlock (_nothing is_). But since the world has decided that he's not worth of anything, he accepts it. He's simply too tired to rebel.  
There are condolences: a text from Mycroft, a call from Lestrade and another from Harriet, an email from Stamford and an atrociously sad dinner with his parents. He finds Mary's will in a drawer. He keeps living in the same house and sleeping in the same bed.  
His love for her dies, too, and in a terrifyingly fast way. At first, John feels guilty, brutal and terrible. But Mary's death is a wound that heals and, with a sense of freedom slowly growing into his chest, he realizes that she had never been _that_ important in the first place.

Sometimes there are fractures that cannot be healed and scars that will never fade.

For example, there's the fracture that Sherlock leaves in his own chest as he fakes his suicide and practically 'kills' John. It's a fracture that's never going to be healed because it's simply too vast and tortuous. When you make your soul mate die, you die with them. It's an idiotic thing to say because it has never been stated, but Sherlock's will is made of rock and his faith in his own decisions and in his power of fixing things are as powerful as the prayer of a demon, and this makes the situation even worse. He causes the emotional death of the most important person in his life; Sherlock dies, too. But he's a genius and, even if he cannot help John now, he has to follow his plans.  
Sherlock misses him. Of course he does. He's endured worse wounds, though, so he goes on.  
It'll just leave an invisible scar on his skin, but he can live with that.

One year after his fall, he travels to various places in order to track down Moriarty's web. He travels to Florence, where he visits monuments he doesn't appreciate, full of mosaics that make him feel nauseous and make him want to laugh at himself because of his love for the syringes, and kills three men. He lives in terrible places and hides wherever he can, working during the day and shooting during the night, always afraid, knowing to be in Moran's sights. He contacts Molly only to be sure that she hasn't told John the truth; she's now useless to him, but at least he hopes she won't be too harmful. He often talks to Mycroft, though: he wants his brother to keep his flat just as it was when he lived there with John. There are too many memories at 221B, and he cannot possibly let them go; there are pieces of it scattered around his mind palace. Mycroft informs him of John's marriage and Sherlock at first feels horribly betrayed, but then gets over it. He gets over the fact that John is normal, after all, and that he still believes he's dead (_he believes in him, too_). He gets over the fact that John needs someone in this period of his life: he's broken and damaged and it's all his fault. Sherlock comprehends that John loves Mary Morstan romantically and that what they had was so unique and so spectacular to be above everything else. She's thankful to the woman, actually, because she seems to be able to keep John together. And since he's selfish and horrible, he also knows that John will leave her when he comes back. If he was a good man he would just let the doctor go. But he isn't a good man; he never has been.

When Sherlock is a killer, he's awful because there's no one to remind him that he's fantastic. He hunts the men and shoots them, when he comes 'home' to rest the noise in his head doesn't let him sleep and, even if he deduces an awful lot of things to find those criminals, it is not enough for his hungry brain. So he reads tons of newspapers, silently deducing the killers, the weapons and the motives, going beyond the words of blood and death and crime. Those newspapers are his placebo, the proof that he once was the great detective Sherlock Holmes and that he's lived a period of absolute delight at 221B Baker Street with a man named John Watson, a man that being normal but not average defies all the laws of human behaviour and society. A man that he's broken and is trying to go on with another normal human being whose name is Mary, hoping to grow old with her because he cannot have Sherlock. A man that someday, being cruel and egoist and tremendous, he's going to take away from her, break again and fix.

Truth is, he doesn't need to do anything about Mary. Two years after his fall, she dies. He personally asks Mycroft to say something to John because he can't. He wouldn't know what to say in any case_. "John, I'm sorry for the death of a wife you were never going to love in the way you love me"_? Definitely a bit not good.  
Two years after his fall, he travels to Tibet and meets the head lama; he travels under the fake name of Sigerson; he travels to Persia and to Montpellier, where he actually has the time to experiment on coal tar derivatives. He's killed every single man he had to kill, except for one: Sebastian Moran, who's his personal tiger and obsession. Moran brings him back to London, and he's tempted to visit John, but resists the urge.

Then, three years after the fall, three years after the final act of their personal tragedy turned into a comedy and into a tragedy again, there is Ronald Adair.  
Both Sherlock and John pick up two copies of the same newspaper and they're unconsciously meeting again in the ink and in the article about that man, about a city boy who had not an enemy in the world but got killed nevertheless. There is something very odd about this case and while John doesn't know about it, Sherlock does, and he does because he knows that Moran is a sniper and a quite wise one. This time, though, he's asked his brother to help him, and Moran is practically under their gun sight, about to get caught.  
Sherlock visits the crime scene in disguise and for a second he's certain that John has recognized him, but the doctor doesn't say anything and neither does the detective.  
Then, _since the time has come_, he asks Mycroft to bring John to their old flat in an impetus of drama. He's going to wait for the doctor there, playing his violin in some sort of encore.

It's night. London is quieter than usual and so is Baker Street, silently waiting for his return. Of course this is only what Sherlock _wants _to think, but it feels gratifying.  
Everything at 221B is the same, from the skull on the mantelpiece next to the stabbed Cluedo board, from the scientific equipment in the kitchen to the periodic table in his bedroom. Mycroft has kept his promise. Sherlock is not going to see Mrs. Hudson now, though, because now John and Moran are his priorities. She's probably sleeping, anyway. Or maybe she's at her niece's house? A quick look at his surroundings suggests him that she's not there. Good.

When John opens the door to their flat, with the most suffering expression he's ever had, Sherlock is sitting on his armchair with the violin placidly resting on his lap. He wonders what Mycroft might have told him; he hopes it wasn't too harsh.  
John looks older, of course, and Sherlock is conscious to look older, too.  
There are some really awkward and striking moments in which they don't talk.  
Then, Sherlock stands up and just says the doctor's name once, and John's expression changes, according to the fact that he's actually realizing what's happening. His face becomes a mask of hurt and fury.

Sherlock doesn't object to the fist that hits his jaw and to the one that hits his nose and to the one that hits his teeth. He doesn't object at all because he knows that he deserves to be beaten—not because he's lied to John, but because he's lied to John only to fulfill his selfish ego (_things could have gone differently, but he decided to play Moriarty's game and win_). He doesn't object to the fact that he falls and hits the floor with the back of his head and blood drips from his nose. He doesn't object to the fact that John is over him, clenching his fist on his coat. He doesn't object at all: he wants to _laugh_.  
There are three years of suffering, lies and pain in his fresh wounds and in the blood that is now dirtying his face, his hair and the floor of their old living room; there are three years of nostalgia, desperation and rage in the scratches that are now on John's knuckles; there are three years of nothing and one second of bliss in the bruises they're going to have on their bodies. He wants to laugh and he's pretty sure that John wants to laugh, too, even if they both look as they're about to cry—from both physical and psychological pain.

Sometimes there are fractures that cannot be healed and scars that will never fade.  
Sometimes you can be very happy about those marks.

"You better have a good explanation for this," John says in a husky voice. "You better have a _fucking_ good explanation for this, or I swear that I'm going to beat you to death, cut you into little pieces and then bury them in your bloody coffin."  
"I have one," Sherlock replies, nearly choking on his own blood. "I have."  
"Good. Then explain to me why you're alive, because I'm pretty sure to have watched your goddamn suicide, and why you have lied to me for three fucking years, you utter _bastard_." John is still clinging onto his coat, but his hands are now shaking.  
Sherlock's breathing with difficulty now, though. John lets him go and he sits down on the floor, coughing. "There's a first aid kit in the kitchen," he says.  
"What makes you think that I want to help you?" John asks, angrily.  
"Because I'm begging you to do so," Sherlock answers. "_Please._"  
John licks his lips, stands up and fetches the first aid kit, then comes back and starts cleaning Sherlock's face from the blood. His hands are still trembling but, even if for one small second the consulting detective is sure that the doctor's going to strangle him, John's touches are gentle. They're gentle when he disinfects Sherlock's wounds and when he dresses them with sterile bandages. They're the touches of a good doctor, after all.  
"I'm not going to kill you. Even if I really should," he whispers. He touches Sherlock's nose. "It's not broken. I wanted to break it, though."  
"I kind of wanted you to break it," Sherlock murmurs.  
They look at each other.

Once again, they're marvels and monsters and they are _together_. Everything falls right into its place even if everything's wrong and everything hurts. But it's okay now; it's okay because, once again, they're completing each other and creating a euphony of silence and noise from a cacophony of gears and gunshots and of palaces and deserts.

"I want to tell you everything," Sherlock says. "I want to tell you everything and if you won't be satisfied with my answers, later, I'm officially giving you the permission to put my brain in a jar. But I cannot. We cannot talk. Not now."  
"Why?" John frowns.  
"You read the article about Ronald Adair," Sherlock insists. "You read it."  
"Yes, I did. It was odd, it—" John pauses. "You were at the crime scene. I _saw_ you, you—"  
"Yes, I was there, but that's not the point," Sherlock interrupts him. "He was killed by Sebastian Moran. He's a sniper and uses a very peculiar kind of gun."  
"What are you exactly asking me?" John asks, and it sounds like "Should I punch you again?"  
"I'm asking you to run with me in the streets of London to chase him. Everything will be alright, Mycroft's helping me, he's already called Lestrade, we'll catch him, then I'll—"  
"You're asking me to catch a sniper with you after lying to me for three years?"  
"Yes."  
"Why can't the police do it just for once?"  
"Because I still have some pride, John. I wasted three years of my life after him."  
"I've always wanted to keep your brain in a jar on my nightstand."  
"I know."  
John sighs. "You're a completely, utterly, totally mad wanker," he says.  
Sherlock looks down.  
"It's an extraordinarily good thing that I'm just like you." John stands up.  
Sherlock opens his eyes wide. "Tomorrow," he whispers. "I'll tell you everything tomorrow. I promise." He stands up too, uncertain.  
"Lead me," the doctor says simply and Sherlock would really like to hug him, but he doesn't because he remembers that he's, well, himself.  
The detective leads him. He does; he's always done that, after all.  
_You're amazing_, they both think. _You're amazing, and terrifying. Don't ever change. I missed you._

The next three hours are made of running, shouting, bullets and handcuffs.  
Moran is a tiger and he _acts_ like a tiger, but Sherlock and John are way stronger than all the tigers of the world, and that's because they're a _whole_. Tonight they have help, too, and there's no way to stop them. This is the night of their resurrection as _Sherlock and John_ after being _just_ Sherlock and _just_ John. This is the perfect night that smells of honey and gunpowder and looks like a canvas painted with blood and sand. This is their night.

After giving up the sniper to the police force and speaking to Lestrade (who looks shocked, relieved and desperate at the same time), they go home.

And, finally, 'home' means '221B' again.

Sherlock Holmes and John Watson are lucky enough to be the protagonists of two fateful meetings. They're lucky enough to make two really important promises that night, without even mentioning them.  
Things are not going to be as they were before—they both know that. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to be worse; they're probably going to be better because now they're together again and, even if they're going to hurt each other since that's what they've always done, they're not going to give a damn about it. They know they're going to poison each other, but they also know the necessary antidotes.  
They're connected by the catgut of their wounds.

Sometimes there are fractures that cannot be healed and scars that will never fade.  
Sometimes you can be very happy about those marks and, even if you try to mitigate the pain, they still hurt like hell.  
But you secretly enjoy the hurt and depend on it.


	12. A showdown in a bell jar

This is still the night of their resurrection. This is still their night.

Moran is not a problem anymore; he's in a prison cell now—or should they call it a cage, a cage for a tiger? That's a cage for a man that has haunted the tigers to the point of actually understanding them, to the point of _becoming_ one of them. That's a cage for the man that has been Moriarty's pet and has tried to be his avenger. That's a cage for a man who failed.  
But Sherlock and John don't care; at least, they don't care now.  
They come back home walking in the damp, crossing the streets full of the ghosts of their own memories; they return to the safest place that they know, a place that has been a sanctuary dedicated to a painful past until now, an island isolated by a thick bell jar, a flat that hasn't changed in three years. Well, it now has; there's Sherlock's violin (he didn't leave it there after his fall) on his armchair, and a bit of Sherlock and John's blood on the floor in front of the fireplace, where the skull is still silently watching them from the mantelpiece. But everything else is the same.

When they come home, John is the first one to speak. He's the first one to speak because he has so many questions now that he thinks he's going to collapse and explode, because his mind is still processing what has happened tonight and because adrenaline is still running in his veins, obfuscating his brain.  
"What should we do now?" he asks, licking his lips.  
They're standing in the hall. They haven't run; they've just walked to 221B from Scotland Yard.  
"I don't know", Sherlock replies. "What do people normally do?"  
"What do people normally do after chasing a mad sniper in the alleys of London?" John adds.  
"I don't think that's what people normally do," Sherlock says.  
"Neither do I. Maybe we should change the question, shouldn't we," the doctor sighs. "What do people normally do after seeing each other after three years? Let's not include a fake suicide in the scenario, I'm seriously not ready to deal with that."  
"I honestly have no clue, John. What do you suggest?"  
John raises his eyebrows. "Lovers might just go to their bedroom and have a shag, friends would probably drink something and talk about the old good times, acquaintances… Well, acquaintances wouldn't really care. To which category do we belong?"  
Sherlock frowns. "Do we really have a category?"  
"Haven't the faintest. But you see my point, don't you? What are you and I supposed to do? What are _Sherlock Holmes_ and _John Watson_ supposed to do?"  
The detective doesn't comment.  
"Personally, I think I'll go to sleep," John says eventually, automatically clenching his fist.  
"Oh. Goodnight," the sociopath says as the doctor starts going up the stairs.  
"It's almost five in the morning—oh, whatever. Goodnight, Sherlock," comes the reply.  
Sherlock looks at the stairs, uncertain. He hears the sound of the door to John's room closing. He picks up his violin without playing it, then he puts it back on the armchair again. After a while, he goes to sleep, too. He stares at the ceiling.  
The flat is quiet again.

When John was picked up by Mycroft, he decided not to think too much. When he was brought at 221B, he decided not to think too much. When he chased Moran running like a fool with Sherlock, he decided not to think too much. When they opened the door to their flat again, he chose to do the same thing. It was a stoical decision and the right pattern.  
Now John's lying on his bed in the dark (the sheets are clean and new; he's lying over them and over the blanket), in a pyjama that fits him perfectly (he found it laying on said bed) and he's _definitely_ thinking too much. He's also really tired and incredibly confused—not to mention furiously angry. His heart is beating as fast as the gunshots again. He wishes his brain would stop working for a while.  
Mycroft has probably organized everything with Sherlock's help. Sherlock wanted the flat to remain like this. He knew he was coming back, sooner or later. He knew that John was going to welcome him back once again. _Sick bastard_. John sighs. He closes his eyes.  
After some time, he hears the door opening.  
"I thought you'd said tomorrow," he murmurs.  
"I don't want to wait until tomorrow," Sherlock replies.  
John opens his eyes and looks at him—or, at least, he tries to, even if the environment is really dark. The detective is wrapped up in a sheet which, for a change, isn't white. There are what look like flowers on it. He can almost hear Mycroft cackling in the distance.  
"How so?" the doctor asks.  
"You're more important than a night of sleep. It's five in the morning, anyway," says the detective.  
"How kind of you. Are you sure you're okay? You haven't banged your head against something, have you?"  
"You know I haven't."  
"It was _ironic_, twat."  
Sherlock closes the door. He's feeling really self-conscious and he's quite aware of the fact the he looks terribly awkward; in addition, his sheet has little red roses on it. It's atrocious.  
He decides to sit on the end of the bed; John doesn't protest. John doesn't protest even when Sherlock lays down beside him; he even makes some room for him.  
"You _do_ realize that I should probably smother you with a pillow, right?" the doctor asks.  
"But you want me to stay here," Sherlock says.  
"Told you we're both mad wankers."

_This is the kind of picture worth remembering_, they both think.  
This is the kind of grotesque picture that breaks all the boundaries; because if in the dimension that Sherlock and John share behind their eyelids those boundaries are made of some pliable material—like clay, bronze, copper or something similar—they are now metaphorically fusing them with fingers of flame, like they've always done. There have always been boundaries in their world; but since they've never cared about them, they've made them nonexistent.  
This is the kind of extraordinary picture that annihilates all the wounds; because if in the unbearable reality that Sherlock and John had to face for three years those injuries have been stitched up with incandescent wire that only made them bleed more—like their heart and their brain, the ones that they share—they are now slowly healing, even if they seem to hurt.  
This is the kind of miraculous picture they've always unconsciously waited for; because if there are now accusations, supplications, apologies and reproaches floating in the air, silently engulfing the molecules, there are also questions and answers; this picture is also a showdown, the final elucidation. The biggest obstacle they've both wanted and feared.  
Sharing a bed comes natural to them because they're already sharing a heart and a brain, and this kind of physical closeness is their limit: since their love is not a romantic and not a sexual love, but simply the love of two soul mates that need each other in order to survive, this closeness is their limit. They'll never go any further and it's okay because they don't need it.

"It cannot wait until tomorrow," Sherlock begins. "Because you've already waited for too long. And I owe you an explanation."  
"And some apologies, maybe," John comments. He turns to face Sherlock.  
"Yes, but I reckon the explanation should come first," Sherlock insists.  
"I don't."  
"Believe me," the sociopath says, and after a second he regrets it. John has always believed in him, after all.  
The doctor gives him a dry look. "Okay, I'll let you explain everything. Just… I don't want you to talk about how you faked your suicide."  
"Why?" Sherlock frowns.  
"Because you fooled me, and I'm a doctor. I took your pulse, Sherlock, and you were _dead_. What you did three years ago must have been absolutely brilliant and amazing, and I don't want to praise you now—you know I'd do that—, I don't think it'd be fair. So, don't talk to me about that."  
"When do you want me to talk about that?"  
John laughs. "I don't know. It could take me days or weeks or months to get ready for that. For the moment, respect my decision."  
"Fine enough," Sherlock says. He swallows. "What do you—"  
"_Why_." John says the word drily, with no hesitation at all. This is what he really wants to know, what has made him ponder for so long.  
Sherlock takes a deep breath. "Moriarty. I solved his riddle and I had to die, but I didn't want to. I had to beat him, John, you know how I am, you know how my brain works. He wanted me to die on that rooftop with him."  
John says nothing.  
"I had the edge over him, though. I knew what he was going to do, so I asked Molly—"  
"Molly? Molly Hooper?"  
"Yes, I—"  
"You've asked Molly to help you. Why not me?"  
"Because you were _important_, John," Sherlock bursts out. "You were important and already part of his plan. She wasn't important, she didn't mean anything, I could only ask her. And Mycroft, but because we hate each other, Moriarty would have never thought of him."  
John inhales. "Okay, go on."  
"I asked a member of my homeless network to phone you and tell you that Mrs. Hudson had been shot. You would have followed me otherwise," the detective continues.  
"Yes, I would have," John confirms, and his tone is full of accusation.  
"I went to meet Moriarty at St. Bart's. There were snipers, John. Three of them. They would have shot you, Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade if I hadn't jumped. I couldn't possibly have allowed it, do you understand?" Sherlock murmurs. _I'm going to be the one to take your life. Me, and no one else._ "Moriarty shot himself. He died instantly. My plan was going to be the last resort, but he made it the only plan possible. I _had_ to jump."  
"Fine. This explains why you had to fake your suicide—good," John acknowledges. "It doesn't explain the lying."  
"It does." Sherlock pauses. "You were in Moriarty's men's sight, I had to keep you safe. I had to keep everyone safe."  
"You killed them?"  
"Yes."  
"And now you came back like a hero, right? Is that what you wanted?" the doctor asks, cynically. _I don't want anyone to think you're a hero. I want to be the only one, so you'll love me for that._  
"I just wanted to come home. But yes, you know I've got a gigantic ego."  
John pauses. "So, only Mycroft and Molly knew you were alive?"  
"Correct," Sherlock confirms.  
"How did you spend these three years?"  
"Horribly. Everything was noisy," says the detective. "I tracked those men down. I traveled a lot, everywhere. I hated every place. I missed this flat."  
"You know everything about Mary," says the doctor. "You know she died."  
"Yes."  
"How did you feel about her?"  
"I didn't care. You're mine. I'm yours. Everyone else is a nuisance."  
John opens his eyes wide. "Is this _sentiment_, Sherlock?"  
"Not the kind you think I feel. The kind _you_ feel."  
There is a pause.

"Who did I bury?" John asks in the end, and it comes in a whisper.  
"Moriarty. His body couldn't stay on the rooftop. We put him in my coffin," Sherlock answers.  
"I made a speech in front of that coffin. I cried in front of it. The same goes for your tomb." John's voice is shaking a bit now.  
"I know. I listened to it. No one had ever cried for me before. I loved it," the detective says. _I wanted to keep your tears in a flask._  
"I didn't cry for Mary. Do you realize how wrong is that?"  
"I don't think it's wrong. I think it's fantastic."  
"Maybe in our deviated vision of the world, but I can assure you that it's wrong. I don't care, though," John sighs.  
"If she hadn't died," Sherlock whispers. "I would have come back to you. I would have told you to leave her and live with me again."  
"I would have probably done it," John murmurs. _I would have broken her heart to fix mine._  
"I know that. I've always known that. But she died, so I didn't have to destroy her."  
"You always destroy everything, don't you? You're not happy until you see the marrow of things."  
"I didn't want to break you."  
"But you did. You broke me, Sherlock."  
"Because I knew I was going to fix you, and because I knew you wanted to be fixed by me."  
"I also wanted to fix you, too."  
"You did, John. You did."  
There are some moments of silence.  
"I lied to you, too," John begins. "About Irene Adler."  
Sherlock sighs. "She's alive, John."  
"That's what I told you, but she's actually—"  
"She wasn't beheaded in Karachi, John. I was there, I saved her," Sherlock says. "You believed you were telling me a lie, but you actually weren't. Well, the bit about America wasn't true, but it wasn't important anyway."  
"You went to Karachi. You told me you were in Birmingham!" John exclaims.  
"I couldn't possibly tell you I was going to fight a terrorist cell to save that woman," Sherlock protests.  
"Why did you save her?"  
"You think I loved her. I didn't."  
"Then why?"  
"She was kind of amazing. I wanted her to stay and make the world quieter. Nothing else."  
John takes a deep breath. "Is there anything you've lied to me about? This is the right moment to tell me, you know."  
"Why now?"  
"Because I'm furious and happy at the same time, and since tonight is the night of your return and of my salvation, I think I could handle every single lie you might tell me. I couldn't bear it on any other day. This is your chance. I'm giving you a chance and you don't even deserve it," the doctor answers. "So go on."  
"You already know about the sugar in your coffee," the detective protests. "So there is only another lie."  
John waits.  
"You were never supposed to pay the rent."  
John raises one eyebrow. "Then what was I supposed to do?"  
"You know it."  
_You were supposed to complete me and I was supposed to complete you_ is the answer that drifts through the air.  
"Don't ever lie to me again."  
"I won't."

They've been looking at each other for all the time, but something in their eyes changes—it's like there were fractures in their pupils, and now they're gone, filled by the balsam of their reparation.  
John closes his eyes. Sherlock watches him for a while, then he gets a bit closer to the doctor. Their foreheads are now touching.  
"I am sorry," he whispers.  
"You better be, you asshole," his soul mate replies. "You better be."

This is still the night of their resurrection. This is still their night.

They've said everything that English was able to express. They've also made two vital promises without even mentioning them.

_When we're so old that we won't be able to chase criminals anymore, when I'm so old that my brain won't solve cases anymore, when you're so old that your limp won't be, for once, psychosomatic, I want to retire in Sussex in a little cottage to keep bees, and I want you to come with me. Because you're the most important person of my entire life, and you deserve to be with me, while I'm not sure that I deserve to be with you. But promise to me that you'll come with me. Bees are interesting creatures. You'll love them._

_When we're so old that we won't be sure to see the next day, when you're so old that your brain won't be as it is now, brilliant and ruthless, when I'm so old that my heart could stop any second, I want you to tell me because you'll have noticed it. I want you to tell me, so that I can take two lethal doses of a terrible poison for us from my drawer to die together. Because you're the most important person of my entire life, and you deserve to die with me, while I'm not sure that I deserve to die with you. But promise to me that you'll take that dose with me. It will be completely painless. You'll love it._

There is also a third promise that is virtually carved on their faces.

_I promise I'll stay._

This is still the night of their resurrection. This is still their night.  
If there's something that makes both of them so thankful that they could die, it's the fact that this is not the final night.  
The final night is the night they're eager to live the most, but they want it to happen as late as possible, and they want it to happen in the buzzing of the bees and the smell of pills.

Dawn comes too soon.


	13. A confirmation in the atmosphere

In the renewed lives of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson there is always going to be a question—and said question is always going to have the same answer. They're going to ask and to be asked this question quite a lot of times. It will _always_ be important.

The first one to ask it is Sherlock. It's Sherlock because, even if he's sure to have deduced everything he could possibly deduce about John—including the fact that the doctor wants exactly the same things that he wants—, he likes to have a confirmation of his genius.  
He asks it the morning after their reunion. He asks it when they're drinking coffee in their kitchen, after only a few hours of tormented sleep. He asks it when he's still wrapped in that ridiculous sheet, when John is laughing because he's finally noticed the little red roses on it and is talking about Mycroft—asking if he's actually the one who kept the flat like this, if he's the one who was helping him while he was killing those men (_he doesn't even seem disturbed by that thought, oh god, he's fantastic_). He asks it because it is the wrong moment and, at the same time, the right moment; because he's waited for so long only to ask John that question, and because he's hurrying up everything, even if he knows he shouldn't be. He asks it abruptly, while John's taking a sip of his coffee and almost chokes on it.  
"Do you regret it?"  
It's a simple question, made of simple words and of a simple grammatical structure, but there's an awful lot of unsaid things in it.  
_Do you regret our first meeting, the one that made you realize you were going to be with me until the end of your days? Do you regret living in our messy flat, a flat where I kept body parts in the fridge and acted like a complete asshole? Do you regret coping with all my experiments, with my desire of disassembling everything, even you? Do you regret becoming one of my possessions? Do you regret my atrocious habit of using you as my favourite specimen because you are the only one who would endure it? Do you regret listening to my lies, feeling guilty and understanding that I didn't want you to know my plans because I wanted them to be a complete surprise to you? Do you regret bearing my insatiable ego, my perpetual demanding of praise? Do you regret living the day that broke you, the day of my fall? Do you regret living these terrible years, now knowing that I had been lying to you all this time? Do you regret yesterday, the day that fixed you? Do you regret the fact that you let me annihilate everything that was still sane in your mind? Do you regret sharing your heart and my brain with me? Do you regret knowing that we're going to end our lives keeping bees in a cottage in Sussex, and that we're going to end them together? Do you regret being both my salvation and my ruin? Do you regret it?  
_John lays his cup on the table and looks at him. Sherlock can see into his eyes the silence he's always craved for and the desert he's seen in a dream when he was younger.  
John takes a deep breath and licks his lips. He smirks, but soon his half-smile turns into a feeble laughter as he shakes his head.  
"No," he says in the end. "No, I don't. I've never regretted it. I don't regret it. I'm never going to regret it. I probably should, but I don't. And you know it, you sick prat. You know it, but you wanted me to say it. You wanted to hear it only to satisfy your stupid ego."  
Sherlock smiles. "You know me too well."  
"I do, Sherlock," John sighs. "Oh, if I do."  
They finish their breakfast without speaking.  
The rest of the day is made of newspapers and deerstalkers, as the world acknowledges that Sherlock Holmes, the consulting detective who's never been a fraud, is back.

The second one to ask it is John. It's John because, even if he's sure to have understood everything he could possibly understand about Sherlock—including the fact that the detective desires the same things he desires—, he likes to have a confirmation of his ideas.  
He asks it one year after their reunion. He asks it when Sherlock is drenched in water because he's thrown himself in the Thames to chase an assassin. He asks it when he's still helping the sociopath, when Sherlock is still coughing and spitting water as he says that he could have chased him for all the path of the river—but he simply decided not to, because it would have been too dangerous and stupid even for his standards (_John knows he's given up because of him, oh god, he's fantastic_). He asks it because it is the wrong moment and, at the same time, the right moment; because he's waited for so long only to ask Sherlock that question, and because he's slowing up everything, even if he knows he shouldn't be. He asks it abruptly, in a soft whisper that Sherlock can only barely hear in the damp atmosphere.  
"Do you regret it?"  
It's a simple question, made of simple words and of a simple grammatical structure, yet it sounds horribly complicated once that John has asked it.  
_Do you regret our first meeting, the one that made you realize you were going to be with me until the end of your days? Do you regret living with me in our flat, a flat where I kept doing ordinary things and calling you an asshole for keeping specimens in the fridge? Do you regret coping with my being ordinary, with my desire to follow you, even when I wasn't supposed to? Do you regret becoming my very own idol? Do you regret my absolute admiration towards you because you are the only one who comprehends it? Do you regret having to tell me lies, feeling like a god and understanding that I somewhat needed you to lie to me because I wanted you to inject adrenaline into my system? Do you regret bearing my weak and fragile ego, my perpetual offering of praise? Do you regret living the day that broke you, the day of your fall? Do you regret living these terrible years, knowing that I was desperately trying to forget you and go on? Do you regret yesterday, the day that fixed you? Do you regret the fact that I'm always going to give you a limit because I want to keep you with me? Do you regret sharing your brain and my heart with me? Do you regret knowing that we're going to end our lives together, and that we're going to keep bees in a cottage in Sussex? Do you regret being both my salvation and my ruin? Do you regret it?  
_Sherlock coughs again and looks at him. He's sitting messily on the wet ground and John is kneeling beside him. John can see into his eyes the noise he's always lusted for and the palace he's seen in a dream when he was younger.  
Sherlock inhales and removes a lock of wet hair from his forehead. He smirks, but soon his half-smiles turns into a hysterical laughter as he keeps staring at John.  
"No," he says in the end. "No, I don't. It's the best thing that has ever happened to me. It's the only thing that I don't want to break. I'm so glad to be back. I would have probably hunted that man to the point of drowning in this stupid river."  
John smiles. "I would have killed you in that case."  
"Oh, but you're going to do that someday, aren't you?" Sherlock asks cheerily as John touches his left temple with his lips. "But I want to save it for when we're old, if you don't mind."  
The police arrive after a while. Lestrade looks like an angered father as he scolds the detective and the doctor just cackles behind them.  
The rest of the day is quite tranquil. Eventually, they find the body of the man Sherlock was so eager to catch floating near the bank.

The third one to ask it is Sherlock, and in a quite bizarre scenario.  
He asks it when he sleeps, in a dream that is so quaint to make him laugh.  
He's in his mind palace, where the canvas is functioning again and his gears shine like comets of steel. He's sitting on an unstable chair next to the fireplace, placidly playing a tune on his violin. When the bow touches the strings of the instrument, little musical notes start forming in the air and then they immediately fall. They're piling up near his left foot.  
"Oh, I knew you would get here, sooner or later," he says cheerily to the figure that is approaching him.  
Their footsteps are fast. Without even turning his head towards the intruder, Sherlock knows exactly who's going to face.  
"Have a seat, I insist," he continues. "You're tired. I know you are."  
"There are no other chairs," comes the dry reply.  
"Well, why would I need them?" Sherlock smirks finally looking at his younger version that is now rolling his eyes and sitting on the floor next to the notes. He's pale, with dark shadows under his eyes, and looks as unkempt and unhealthy as ever.  
The awful junkie and the brilliant consulting detective, finally in the same place.  
"You look awful," the older comments. "Are you twenty-nine? Yes, you probably are. It's a terrible year, I remember it. You're going to get beaten and abandoned in an alley and Mycroft will have to pick you up. Tragically frustrating."  
The junkie sighs. "Will he ever stop pretending to be my mother?"  
"Of course not. Don't tell me you were actually expecting that," the detective frowns. "Anyway, what brings you here? No one has visited this place after John, and that was almost four years ago."  
"Who's John?"  
"What do you think?"  
The junkie reasons about it for a while, then opens his eyes wide. "_Oh," _he whispers. "But _how_?"  
"A fateful meeting," the detective replies, smirking. "But I'm not going to spoil it for you."  
"That's why there's a fireplace? And bottles of blood? That's why the gears are working without making too much noise?" the younger asks, frantically.  
"Precisely," the detective confirms. "He's going to fix you, somehow. You _are_ fixable, don't worry."  
The junkie looks scared, now. "But will he _know_?"  
"Yes, he will. He'll know about everything and you won't even have to tell him," the older says.  
"But what normal man would choose to stay with me?" his younger version insists. "Who'd choose to stay with me knowing those things?"  
"A normal man who's not average," Sherlock whispers as he starts playing again. "You wanted to hear a confirmation, am I wrong? Here it is. You're going to be marvels and monsters, _together_."  
"The bees. Does he know about the bees?"  
"Oh, yes. He promised."  
"And what will he do when the gears are _too_ hungry?"  
The consulting detective thinks of pills he's never taken, games he's never played and men he hasn't caught because staying alive (_staying with John_) was more important. "He'll stop you."  
"You've probably missed a lot of interesting experiences, then."  
"Yes, I have."  
The question comes in a whisper. "Do you regret it?"  
Sherlock smirks. "Not at all."

The fourth one to ask it is John, and in a quite bizarre scenario.  
He asks it when he sleeps, in a dream that is so quaint to make him laugh.  
He's in his heart desert, where the armies are fighting again and the gunshots are as noisy as ever. He's sitting next to the fireplace, on the rock made of bone; he's torn a piece of it off because he had nothing else to do and he's now carving it with a scalpel: the subject's a bee. It's good, but it indeed needs more work. Maybe, if he practices enough, he'll be able to sculpt Sherlock, someday.  
"There isn't much to do here," John says to the figure that is approaching him. He can hear their footsteps; they're too slow to be Harriet's. "That's why I'm carving this thing."  
The intruder doesn't reply.  
He looks up. "Oh," he exclaims. "Well, this is really weird, but I guess I should have expected it."  
His younger version shrugs. "I don't even know anymore. This doesn't even look like my desert, it's more—"  
"You see things here that you've never seen before," the blogger finishes for him. "How long have you been in the desert? I mean, in Afghanistan?"  
"Two months," the army doctor replies. He's still innocent and there's no blood on his hands; he's slightly tanned, younger. He's average.  
"For God's sake, you're so boring."  
The resurrected blogger and the dull army doctor, finally in the same place.  
"Boring? I am you," the doctor protests, frowning.  
"Like me? Oh, no, you're not. You're a moron. Well, that's what Sherlock would say, anyway," John murmurs. "I kind of sound like him, don't I?"  
"Who's Sherlock?" The younger sits on the rock beside him.  
"What do you think?"  
"A friend?"  
The blogger sighs.  
"A best friend?"  
The blogger clears his throat and there are some seconds of silence. Then, the inevitable happens. He can almost feel it in the atmosphere.  
"But I'm not gay," John's younger version whines.  
The older starts laughing bitterly. "I'm so happy I didn't meet Sherlock when I was like you, he would have punched me in the face calling me an idiot—well, he does that anyway, but I suppose he would have done that in a crueler way."  
"Explain yourself," the doctor demands. "Who the hell is Sherlock?"  
"He's your soul mate. You'll love him more than anyone else, and he'll do the same—even if in a really twisted way, but he's mad, so I guess it's normal. And good, since I am mad, too. And don't make that face, that doesn't necessarily mean you'll have sex with him, calm down. You look terrified," John says.  
"But," the other begins. "I wanted a wife. And children. A _family_."  
"You're going to change a lot, I assure you that," says the blogger. "You'll give up on everything for him, really, and you'll be okay with that."  
The doctor's voice is a bit uncertain, "Are you… happy, now?"  
"Yes. Even if I had to suffer a lot."  
"Do you regret it?"  
John thinks of women he's never married, of Mary, of a fall, of running into a city that pulses to the rhythm of gunshots and of bullets in the walls.  
He smirks. "Not at all."

The fifth one to ask it is Sherlock.  
He asks it when his dark hair is striped with grey, when his face is wrinkled and he still refuses to wear glasses even if he really should; he asks it when John is old, too, even if he wears glasses because he's a lot less stubborn.  
He asks it when they live in a cottage in Sussex keeping bees and there are two pills waiting for them in a drawer in their bedroom (they don't sleep in the same bed; it has happened, but always on particular circumstances).  
He asks it when they're sitting on the respective armchairs in front of a fireplace, when he's reading a book about beekeeping and John is using his laptop to write on his blog (he's never stopped, even if their lives are not really interesting now).  
"Our neighbors have finally found their cat," John says.  
"Mh?"  
"It exploded. In our garden."  
"Mh?"  
"Apparently there was a mine. In our garden. That's why the cat exploded."  
"Mh."  
"Cats aren't supposed to explode because there's a mine in our garden, and that's because there _shouldn't_ be a mine in our garden," John insists. "Why in the world did you decide to put a mine in our garden?"  
"Well, did you want me to put it in a drawer in the kitchen?" Sherlock lazily says. "Anyway, there was a sign."  
"Cats cannot read, Sherlock."  
"They'll get another one to replace the older and they'll forget about the fact that this one exploded, don't worry," the detective comments. "Sentiment works like that."  
"God only knows how I manage to live here with you," the ex-doctor sighs dramatically.  
"Do you regret it?"  
Sherlock asks it with nonchalance but they both know that's an important question: it has always been.  
"Of course I don't," John answers. "As long as I don't step on one of those goddamn mines and explode, too."  
"There was only that one."  
"Good."  
The air smells, once again, of a confirmation placidly floating in the atmosphere.

This question is going to be asked one final time, in a place where a palace intersects with a desert and where the smell of blood is covered by the smell of honey.

This question is going to be asked one final time, and the answer's going to be the same.


	14. A palace in the midst of a desert

This is the day of the final question. This is the final day.

John's eyelids are closed, but he's awake. He's lying on his back on what feels like a very hard floor which is, even if he's been there for a while now, extraordinarily cold.  
There is no noise in the air, which is silent and smells of honey. After some minutes he realizes that there is no _absolute_ silence and that he can hear the feeble buzzing of the bees; it's like they're going to sleep as the noise tails away.  
He doesn't feel like he's supposed to feel, old and aching all over. He feels good. He feels young (well, _younger_) and the wound on his shoulder is perfectly healed. There's only a scar left, along with the signs of the stitches.  
He opens his eyes and sits up on the floor; after a few seconds he stands up.  
He's in a huge palace. He's seen a similar place in one of his dreams when he was younger, when he was an imbecile and lived optimistically in a desert; he can barely remember it, but he knows this vast building is actually Sherlock's mind.  
This palace has a floor made of gold and red marble, walls covered in bookshelves with books and guns on them. There are plaster decorations that remind him of Greek temples, and lots of interesting and beautiful stuff piled up everywhere (there's even the fireplace that is in his heart—or maybe this is another one? Sherlock's fireplace? It could be). But what really catches his attention is a skyscraper: it's in the exact center of the palace. It's incredibly high and there are what look like gears on it—no, they _are _gears. They're not working, though: red sand is blocking them.  
He's staring at them in complete awe; they're what moved Sherlock for all his life. They are, in fact, Sherlock. If he could just climb on the skyscraper and touch them, he'd do it.  
He wonders where the exit might be so he starts walking in a random direction. He's barefoot and when his feet touch the ground they leave red marks on it; he's becoming part of the palace, too. It doesn't hurt. It's a wonder. It's a completely new kind of miracle.  
After some minutes, he can hear a violin playing in the distance, so he speeds up his walking pace. For the first time in his life, he knows exactly what is happening and he feels euphoric and terrified at the same time.  
Wind begins to blow on his face, a wind that smells of honey and of something else, now—the rusty scent of dried blood. He can see a huge portal in the wall in front of him and, outside, his desert. The violin is louder now. He passes through the portal.

His desert is like it has always been, except for one thing: the war. It's still going on, but John knows this is the final act. The soldiers have finally understood what they've been fighting for all this time, and their battle is going to end any second now. They're using their last munitions, almost every man has died; still, there is no winner.  
Sherlock is sitting on the rock made of bone next to John's fireplace, playing his violin as usual. He looks like when the first time they met and when his bow touches the strings little drops of blood fall on the ground, becoming sand. It's the most beautiful thing John has ever seen: it's Sherlock scattering into pieces and becoming part of his own universe, of his own heart. It's the most wonderful thing he's ever seen but he also knows what it _means_.  
"Sherlock," he whispers.  
The detective stops playing and looks up at him. "John," he says smiling. "You've woken up."  
"Yes, I—you were in the palace with me before?"  
"Yes, but you wouldn't open your eyes even if I was calling you. I was beginning to worry," Sherlock replies. "To worry. _I_ was beginning to _worry_, isn't it fantastic?"  
"How long have you been here?" John asks.  
"For a while. Why are you asking this?"  
"It was 30 minutes," the blogger replies. "I mean. The pill. It needed 30 minutes to have an effect."  
"Oh, but do you remember taking it?"  
"No, do you?"  
"No. So I don't know if this is the day of our death, John. For the moment, you should stop worrying about it," Sherlock sighs.  
"But what if it is?" John insists. "What if we're dying in this very moment, if we're two old men laying on a bed dying? What if this is the final day?"  
Sherlock frowns. "What do you mean?"  
"You're younger than me, you shouldn't have taken that pill—oh God, it was my idea. I'm sorry, Sherlock, I truly am," the ex-doctor mutters passing his hands through his hair.  
"Why are you so concerned? Calm down, for god's sake," the sociopath exclaims.  
"Well, you're dying because of me!" John cries.  
"First of all, we don't even know if we're dying yet—"  
"You still think we don't know it yet?!"  
"It could be just a dream, John! A shared dream," the detective bursts out. "It has happened before!"  
John pauses. "Has it?"  
"I've seen this desert before. It was different. _I_ was different. I saw it when I was a mosaic."  
"Yes, I know you did. You visited it when you were a junkie. I thought you had forgotten about it—"  
"And you saw my palace when you were in Afghanistan."  
"You remember it?" John asks, his eyes wide.  
"Of course," Sherlock sighs. "You know I remember everything's that's useful."  
"You thought it was useful?"  
"Of course. There's a filing cabinet full of data about you in my palace."  
The blogger takes a deep breath. "Well. That's… flattering, I suppose?"  
Sherlock rolls his eyes. "Of course it is, John, and you _know_ it. Anyway, as I said, we cannot be sure that we're dying. And even if we were, I wouldn't mind it."  
"But—"  
"I reckon this was established years ago, when I came back from the dead."  
"We didn't say anything about that."  
"But we promised nevertheless, didn't we?" Sherlock asks.  
"Yes. Yes, we did," John says. "We talked about our cottage in Sussex and about those pills and—Jesus, this doesn't even make sense because we actually didn't. We didn't even mention those things, and yet we promised them. Oh, God. This doesn't make sense _at all_."  
"Nothing actually does," the detective comments.  
"I think I'm beginning to sound a little like you."  
"No, John, I can assure you you're tragically normal, which is your blessing."

John sighs. "Are you sure you don't regret all this?"  
"Yes. I want to die with you," Sherlock confirms.  
"Why?"  
"Because," the sociopath begins with a deep breath. "I've wanted to meet someone fantastic all my life. I wanted it when I was a kid, when I was a teenager, when I was a young man. I made a promise to my brother once, and I was in my palace; I promised him that I was going to leave my dreadful flat to meet someone fantastic, and that's precisely what I did. This is pure _sentiment_, John, and you might understand why I was utterly terrified of it. I've always wanted to be a machine to match my gears, but I'm not. And this makes my situation worse since, even if my brain is an utter prodigy, I am wired wrong. You told me once that I'm not happy until I see the marrow of things: it's true."  
John doesn't comment.  
"When I'm capable of breaking things and fixing them, I feel like a god," Sherlock continues. "I am a god, in that sense. Look at you. You're fantastic. And since you're a marvel and I'm a marvel too, you're the only one who's worth killing me. I want to be ended by you, and you want to end me."  
"Yes, I do," John confirms.  
"It's my turn to ask you why," Sherlock says raising an eyebrow.  
The blogger licks his lips. "But you already know."  
"I want to hear it."  
"Fine. Well," John begins. "It's because you're not the only one who's mad here. If you think you're wired wrong, then what am I? At least you have an excuse: you're a genius. You can look and act like a mad hatter and no one will object to it—people will call you a freak, but that's all. As you said, I'm tragically normal: I am _supposed_ to be normal and to act normal when I'm not. I'm fairly stupid, if compared to you, but as a doctor I'm a god. You might be good at breaking and fixing things, but anatomy is like clay to me. No one ever understood this; not even Mary. You were the only one. It's a quite ironic thing to say."  
Sherlock doesn't comment.  
"I think I am amazing, somehow. But look at you. You are a marvel. I think that I want to be the one to end you because, seriously, what could be more wonderful than ending someone like you? But I couldn't bear the guilt. There's a soldier made of silver buried in a canyon, Sherlock, and he's beautiful, but I don't want you to become like him. Dying together seems to be the best solution."  
"I agree," says the detective. "So, stop worrying. Even if this is our final day, we're both comfortable with it. Anyway, I thought you would be more worried about the bees."  
The ex-doctor frowns. "The bees?"  
"They're dying, I think. Or maybe they're just going to sleep. We spent too much time with them. I thought you would have hated it. Why did you come with me?"  
"You wanted me to," John replies. "Why did you want me to?"  
"You were the only one I wanted to keep bees with. I've always thought that I was going to die young—what could possibly have stopped me? I have no limits. The words 'right' and 'wrong' make absolutely no sense to me. I'm supposed to balance feelings that are not mine. Language belongs to a universe I don't comprehend, but you can translate it. You can translate my lines and my dots; look at _your_ sky, John. My brain engulfs it. You don't understand how much this means to me. My bees have always lived here. Their hives have always been hidden here somewhere. I loved them. I wanted to make them real and I wanted you to be with me _because_ you made me real. But I was scared."  
"Scared of what?" John asks.  
Sherlock pauses.

"I was scared you'd leave," he says eventually.  
"You knew I was going to stay," John protests.  
"Fear is always irrational," the detective replies. "And you're normal."  
"Normal, but not average," the blogger retorts. "You know, I remember being in this desert with my sister Harry. I remember telling her that my girlfriends had never understood me. I still think that. Mary pretended to, but she actually didn't. I remember telling Harry that I was with you, and that you were the most important person in my life. She hated me for that."  
Sherlock frowns.  
John laughs. "She told me I was a hypocrite. Like everyone else, she was convinced I was gay. I really am not and you know that. I think our relationship is the weirdest relationship ever. I wasn't going to be happy without you. You made me suffer a lot, I won't lie about it. But at the same time, it was worth it. I was the only one who would have coped with all the shit you put me through, to be honest—but I don't even care anymore."  
Sherlock is still frowning. John sits on the rock next to him.  
"You've always told me that language didn't make sense. I get it now," he says.  
"You do?" the detective asks.  
"Yes. At least, I think so," the blogger replies. "When you speak it doesn't really make sense, you know? When you're not deducing, I mean. You just start saying random words. Remember when you shouted 'pink' to Lestrade?"  
Sherlock snorts. "It wasn't _random_."  
"Well, anyway. It _did_ sound random," John continues. "I see why you say that language fails. I've always loved you, since the first time we met. But I've never been in love with you."  
"A normal man would say that this couldn't be possible," the sociopath comments.  
"But you are not a normal man," the older smiles.  
"No, I'm not. I understand what you mean. I think it's perfect," says the other. "I've never told you, but it's what I… _feel_, too, and I'm not supposed to be in this abyss."  
"You've always been on its edge. I just made you fall."  
"I'm metaphorically applauding at your choice of words," the detective sighs. "Anyway, we did something extraordinary."  
"Did we?" asks the ex-doctor.  
"Oh, yes. We took an overused, abused and incredibly dull concept—the one of 'love'—and made it into something entirely different. We resurrected it."  
"That's a weird way to think of it."  
"Don't you appreciate it?"  
"Oh, I do. I adore it."  
They both smirk.  
There are minutes of silence.

"We don't know if this is the final day or not," John says. "But I won't regret anything that I've said. I meant it."  
"Oh, same," Sherlock says. "But I reckon it was obvious."  
"I've never believed in afterlife," the blogger exclaims.  
"Neither have I," the detective agrees.  
"But if this is afterlife, I kind of like it."  
Sherlock smiles.  
"I think we've been here for more than thirty minutes now. How long is this going to continue?"  
"I don't know. We could wake up tomorrow, or never."  
"In any case, I think I know what this place's missing."  
"What?"  
"Some music," John replies as Sherlock methodically caresses his violin.

This is the day of the final question. This is the final day. _Perhaps._

Sherlock starts playing. John closes his eyes, and listens.


	15. A universe inside a skull

This story has been the story of a sociopath and a soldier, of a junkie and a wreck, of a consulting detective and a blogger.  
This story has been a story of desolations, miracles, apocalypses and resurrections.  
This story has been the story of a palace and a desert, of a heart and a brain, of a flat in London and cottage in Sussex, of a life spent after criminals and an adventure ended with beekeeping.  
This story has been a story drenched in blood and smelling of honey.  
This story has been the story of two marvels and two monsters who knew what they were.  
This story has been the story of two men who defied every boundary humankind has ever known.  
This story has_ not_ been a story of romance, but it has indeed been a story of love.  
This story has been the story of two soul mates.  
This story has been the story of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson.

Stories are made of main events and details.  
Sherlock has always been able to see the details; when your mind is made of compulsive gears, you are _made_ of details: you see chains of events everywhere. There is a precise scheme into his head—a scheme that traces the path that led him to John and that led John to him; the path that they have followed during their journey of salvation and wonder, through the abyss of a fall and the hurt of a reunion; the path that was drawn on the streets of a chaotic city and ended in the tranquility of an apiary.  
John has always been able to see the main events; when your heart is made of roaring dunes, you are _made_ of main events: they separate your life into phases. For example, John has unconsciously divided his existence in five important periods: the one of being a lamb in the desert, the one of being a monster behind the dunes and the skyscrapers, the one of being a miracle owning a gun, the one of being a wreck in the bleakness of a house and the one of being born again as himself. Sherlock's phases are similar to his.

There are also things that are suspended between the two categories.  
There are also things that characterize stories without even being noticed. They are just there. They _exist_. They made the story what it actually is without monopolizing it. They're always in the background, silently watching everything; they're witnesses and proofs of what is taking place.  
One of those things exists even in this story. Both Sherlock and John have loved it.  
It has been on a mantelpiece for all this time.  
It's a skull.

Let's talk about skulls in general.

They are bony structures, parts of the skeleton—in this case, of the human skeleton. They support the structures of the face, and sometimes you just wonder about it because, really, all faces are just pieces of muscle and skin and organic material combined in different ways, and they can create the face of who you love the most; skulls form the cavities which embrace the brains that have always fascinated you, the ones you've always wanted to study or keep in a jar, obsessed by their magnificence.  
They're made of different parts, all joined by sutures that separate the various bones and melt them again with strings of thoughts.  
Teeth are soldered to the maxilla and to the mandibula. They're part of something that can break bones and heal wounds with a delicate variation in the inflection of a sentence; they're instruments of a wonder called language.  
Skulls are miracles themselves.

Let's talk about our skull. Let's talk about a peculiar skull. Let's talk about a skull which is, like John's gun is _the_ gun, _the_ skull.

Sherlock gets it in an illicit way, of course. He manages to purloin it from the morgue when Molly isn't watching. He needs an audience, after all: someone that can share the noise in his head along with the infinity of letters floating in the air, like deductions engulfing the oxygen. But since a human companion who would actually want to listen to him talking and deducing them in order to see their marrow is impossible to get, Sherlock has to choose a skull.  
He doesn't name it: it would be a frankly intolerable act of sentiment. He just sits in his dull flat, shooting the furniture and talking to it between a case and another. He fills it with his thoughts. When he meets John he automatically replaces his skull with him. _Let me fill your head._ The skull remains on the mantelpiece, though. He wants it to watch.

When Sherlock and John are packing their things in order to move to Sussex and to their cottage, John is the one to place it in a cardboard box, wrapped in cellophane. Well, Sherlock is only actually _pretending_ to help—he's sitting on his armchair, as usual, reading a book about beekeeping—, so of course it's John who does all the work.  
"You know, I've always wondered why you always refused to give it a name," he says, pointing to the skull.  
Sherlock doesn't even avert his eyes from the book and sighs. "Too sentimental."  
"_I_ gave it a name, though. I called it Vlad."  
The detective frowns. "Vlad?"  
"Like, er, Vlad the Impaler," the doctor answers.  
"You gave my skull the name of a mad Romanian sovereign who was known for his inhumane cruelty and for the fact that he enjoyed torturing and impaling his enemies?"  
"Yes, I did."  
"My skull has been named after Vlad the Impaler," Sherlock repeats.  
John scowls. "You're making it sound so terrible."  
"It _is_ terrible."  
"I thought it suited it."  
"It does. I'm glad you chose that name. If I were you, though, I would have probably opted for an equally remarkable name, but possibly not related to a sadistic maniac."  
"Like?"  
"Svante."  
"Svante? Wait, like Svante Arrhenius, the chemist?"  
"Precisely."  
John smirks and then seals the box. "We're going to place it on a mantelpiece again, aren't we?"  
"Yes, obviously," Sherlock answers.  
John laughs. "You know, I've always adored this skull. It has been here since we met and it's going to be with us… well, forever, if you don't blow it up." He pauses. "It's a really stupid thing to say—but it's like it has seen our beginning and it's going to see our end."  
He frowns. "God, I really _do_ begin to sound like you. Anyway, I have to pack my clothes." He walks towards his room.  
John doesn't notice, but Sherlock is looking at him in utter awe.

Bees are buzzing in their apiaries in a big garden. It's early in the morning.  
Today is the first anniversary of the day they moved to Sussex.  
A man is digging a deep hole in the ground with a spade. His sleeves are rolled up and he's covered in clayey soil. There's a skull on the edge of the hole; the man is going to bury it later. The man is Sherlock. He's been there for a while, now.  
John is making tea in their kitchen (_Earl Grey, two sugars for Sherlock, no sugar for him_); the table is right in front of a window, and he's been observing Sherlock for a while. With a half-smile, John fills a cup with steaming tea, adds two spoons of sugar to it and proceeds to fill another cup for himself; then he opens the back-door, walking towards the retired detective.  
"You've been digging that hole for almost two hours," he says to Sherlock's back. The detective turns his face towards him. "How deep does it have to be?"  
"You told me there's a canyon in your desert," Sherlock says, accepting the cup that John is handing him with a nod. "How deep is it?"  
"I'd say it's quite deep, but I doubt you'll be able to dig an actual canyon in our garden," the blogger answers glancing at the skull and taking a sip of his tea. "Why are you burying it?"  
"Men always hide the things whose decays they don't want to see," the detective replies. "I don't want to see this skull's decay."  
"Of course you're not talking about a physical decay, am I right?"  
"Precisely. You do know what I'm referring to," says Sherlock, starting to drink his tea, too.  
"Tell me, did you start thinking about it when I told you that this skull had seen our beginning and was about to see our end?"  
"I told you once that as a conductor of light you were unbeatable. How true is that."  
John smirks. "Well, I'm certainly going to miss Vlad on the mantelpiece."  
"You mentioned once a silver soldier buried deep in a canyon," Sherlock begins. "I've always thought that your subconscious was trying to tell you something—maybe something poetical, since we're talking about you and you're incredibly bound to sentiment, even if I was able to mitigate a little that characteristic of yours. Anyway, when you told me about the symbolic meaning of that skull, I understood what I was going to do. I'm going to bury it and I won't allow it to see our end. I'm going to save our memories. If you reason about it, John, this is the same principle which is at the base of burying people into coffins. It's merely the art of hiding, the placebo of simple minds. What you can't see doesn't exist. In this case, my act is purely a symbol—I want you to understand this."  
"What, in our story, _isn't_ a symbol, you mad wanker?" John asks.  
Sherlock inhales. "John, symbols are the only things that language, in my case, can properly express." He takes another sip of his tea.  
"Oh, I know that," the doctor replies, finishing his beverage. "I've always wondered what I would have done without your absurd metaphors, you know." _Without you._  
"Don't get stuck into possibilities, John. Stick to data. It's more useful and far more interesting." _That's a possibility I never want to think of._  
"I'll have to find another object to place on our mantelpiece."  
"I believe that horrendous ceramic bee your sister gave us will do."  
John laughs. "That was always better than Mycroft's gifts. Anyway, you're not going to finish your tea, are you?"  
The sociopath hands him the half-empty cup and the doctor heads back to their cottage.  
Sherlock starts digging again as John walks away.

There is a skull buried deep in the ground in the garden of a cottage in Sussex.  
This skull is filled with a universe, a universe which is absolutely unique and is formed by the union of two marvels that are monsters and know it.  
In the left orbit of this skull we can see a brain and its synapsis; the chisel of logic and the science of deduction; the pain of a sociopath and the syringes of destruction; the Corinthian columns of a palace and the sweet smell of honey.  
In the right orbit we can see a heart and its ventricles; the scalpel of impulsiveness and the art of trust; the pain of a wreck and the guns of salvation; the rusty dunes of a desert and the suffocating scent of blood.

This skull—_the_ skull—is filled with the story of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson.  
That's the kind of story that never ends.

* * *

And here we are, at last. This is the epilogue of this story, the epilogue of "Inside the skull".

It's the longest thing I've ever written, I swear. It's also the first thing that I've posted online  
I've been compulsively writing for more than a month after collecting ideas for almost a year and I can say that I'm really pleased with the result. I've received a lot of positive feedback and I'm really, really glad that you appreciated my story; I put a lot of effort into writing it and developing the characters, and I'm very amazed by the fact that you've actually found it worth reading.  
You know, I got published before actually posting anything I had ever written on the internet, so this kind of interactive relationship between you (my lovely readers) and I (the idiotic and insecure author) is still really strange to me.  
I wanted to thank you for giving me your time. Thank you for reading the messy ramblings of an Italian newbie, young writer with a thing for writing in English.

These 15 chapters are part of "Inside the skull", but "Inside the skull" is going to be a part of a bigger universe—the Skull universe. I'm going to write more about BBC Sherlock, definitely.  
"Inside the skull" is Sherlock&John-centric and follows their story in chronological order. The next stories are going to be about the other characters (especially Moriarty and Mycroft, but I'd like to write about Lestrade and Molly and the others, too), and they're going to be set in the same chronological arc—basically, between a chapter and another of "Inside the skull".

My personal versions of John and Sherlock are really weird, especially Sherlock. The fact that Sherlock sees letters and languages is related to the fact that I have a synaesthetic condition that makes me see letters when people speak.

Also, "Don't get stuck into possibilities" is a reference to "Stuck in Possibilities", a short story of mine that got published into a real book (!) called the "Heart of Aces" this summer by Good Mourning Publishing. A bit of self-promotion never hurts!

Thank you again, guys. You're amazing.

Flacchus


End file.
